


Bloodstone

by Lullabyes



Category: Blood+
Genre: Babies, Cheating, Chiropterans, Dysfunctional Relationships, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, First Time, Heavy Angst, Love Triangles, Married Life, Moral Ambiguity, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Soap Opera, Unplanned Pregnancy, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 18:26:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 33
Words: 169,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10950219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lullabyes/pseuds/Lullabyes
Summary: A What-If canon. Saya bypasses Haji and marries Solomon, but the marriage is far from the Dream Come True she pictured. The tale of an Errant Chevalier and a War Bride: Fantasy and reality seldom do walk hand in hand. SayaxSolomon, SayaxHaji. COMPLETE.





	1. Deliria

**This story is inspired by Tuli Azzameen's (formerly Anonymousness) work _Where Black Met Gold_. It can be found [here](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3974845/1/Where-Black-Met-Gold).  **

* * *

_**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** _

_Well, here I am again... I just can't seem to leave this fandom well enough. :D_

_This is written partly in response to Anonymousness' awesome fic, "Where Black Met Gold", although it can also be read as an alternate "What-if" canon. The story calls to light some really pertinent issues b/w Saya's relationships with both Haji and Solomon, which inspired me to do some of my own personal musings. Suppose Saya and Haji were an item after the war ended, but Saya bypassed Haji and married Solomon instead? Suppose she wound up carrying his children and traveling the world with him? What would their marriage be like? What sort of issues would they face?_

_Personally, I enjoy the idea of both SayaxSolomon and SayaxHaji, but I have a bias toward the latter. I don't think Solomon is really the right choice for Saya. In the series, it's clear the poor guy loves her, but love doesn't always guaruntee happiness. Or suitability._

_Spoilers ahoy for a greater part of the series. Fans of both pairings are welcome to comment. But flames will just get ya reported. Fair's fair. :P_

_NOTE: Edited as of 2011. Nothing major. Just spelling errors and sentence reformation. Also 'revised' the lemon scenes so this fic earns that thar M-Rating. I tend to severely water down any smut I post on this site; the dirtier stuff stays on my hard drive (whoa, lookit that pun!). In this case, though, the original stuff was pretty tame. Posting it online should hopefully not offend anyone's sensibilities. If anything, the extra scenes should mesh better with the overall story, since it was how the fic was originally written, before I suffered The Attack of Scrupulous Edits._

_If you notice the additions, good for you. If not, it makes no difference plot-wise either way._

_I do not own Blood Plus and make no profit out of torturing its characters._

* * *

_Present moment..._

* * *

She sees herself shielded in a bubble.

Curled fetal and motionless, a baby in the womb. Heartbeat resonant, the only sound she can focus on, its dull tempo like a beacon in a tempest.

There is blackness all around her, murky malignant darkness of nightmare. Thoughts crashing against her with livid violence, splattering to shards, rocking but never touching her. The bubble holds her enclosed, protected behind a barrier that is neither comforting nor unbreakable.

Simply…sufficient.

It is a barrier built upon her nerves, her own endurance. The ocean is her past, jostling her every direction, with no way to escape.

 _Hold on,_ she tells herself.

_Just hold on._

_It's going to be all right._

A sudden bump rattles her awake. The floating bubble, the crashing black ocean, dribbles away. She hears the drumbeat of her heart, melting away amid the roar of engines. The sound is overlapped by hissing air-conditioners and droning voices. A dim orange glow on her closed eyelids suggests a light is shining on her.

Groggy, Saya opens her swollen eyes.

She sits in an airplane, speedily bound to Japan. Pressed against the window seat, a drowsing old couple at her left.

The aged lady snores softly, hands folded primly across her lap. At her side, her husband's head droops, mouth open. Saya watches from the corner of her eye, half-afraid his dentures will slide out from between his lips.

The seatbelt sign above lights up. A crackling voice intones that they will be landing at Naha airport soon.

She rubs her aching eyes. At her side, the window is a luminous circle, bright with dawn sunlight. Clouds float outside, bouffant puffs of cream. The plane is nearing its destination; she can sense it, like an eminent tug all through her bones. She is heading back to Okinawa— _home_ , to Kai and the others.

A haven where she might just be able to rest, get a chance to reorient her own jagged thoughts.

Come to a decision.

 _I never imagined it would be like this,_ she thinks blearily. _I never thought it would end up this way._

The tears dripping from her eyes are helpless, squeezed out as though with a dropper. Her head aches from all the crying—she's wept unceasingly the past few weeks, both inside and out—yet it seems that her body can still produce tears in infinite capacities.

It seems like the only emotion she's capable of anymore.

She feels the sudden pressure of a kick, like a sharp hiccough. Her hands move of their own accord, to the tight-stretched belly under her black sweater. Despite her tears, she manages a wavery smile.

One of her unborn twins is feeling frisky again.

Dimly, she wonders if they can sense her moods. A mother's body is nothing more than a siphon to her child's, after all.

But in this case, she desperately hopes not. What a terrible thing it would be, to be born unhappy into this life. If anything, babies are entitled their joy, because they really are the only pure things alive in this world.

Everything else is so steeped in dissolution.

Her own life constantly seems the best example.

Saya winces, shifting in her seat. Her back aches, the pain mounting with each passing hour. Her distended belly feels like a ball-and-chain, weighing both on her tiny frame, and on the wilting foundation of her nerves. She's in the final term of pregnancy—and the imminent childbirth is taking its toll on her, mentally and physically.

She should be in a hospital right now. Or at the most, at home, resting.

This was the mantra the airline staff trilled when they first saw her, pale and puffy-eyed, with just a carry-on at her shoulder, boarding the plane. The same chorus recited by the travel agency—shocked when Saya burst into their office, a red-eyed young woman cradling a nine-month belly, demanding a one-way plane ticket to Okinawa.

 _"Miss, we really advise you not to travel in your condition,"_ the female clerk interposed. " _In case of an emergency—"_

 _"Oh, way to reassure the customer!"_ Saya was too tangled in wild desperation to be polite anymore. Her one thought, gnawing at her whole body like acid, was to escape. Get away, get away fast—before the babies were born.

Because if they were born here…if she stayed here a minute longer…with _him_ …

_No._

_No no no._

_I have to get out of here. I can't go on like this._

Reaching out across the counter, she seized the clerk's arm in a vise-like grip. Her voice was not a plea, but a command. _"I need tickets to Okinawa. The soonest flight. First-class or economy, I don't care. But I need them right now!"_

_"Miss, please! I'm afraid I can't—"_

Saya fixed the indignant woman with the same will-bending glare she'd worn during the ghastly years of the war—living on the edge of the blade, guided by instinct.

_"I can pay my way for this trip, and I'm not going to give birth during take-off. So give. Me. The. Tickets."_

With every word, her hand tightened on her victim's arm.

The woman, ashen, nodded.

Four hours later, Saya was zooming back to Japan, teeth gritted, tears boiling behind her eyes, arms wrapped tight across her belly like a pair of crossed swords on a coat of arms.

Realistically, she knows the staff's fears are justified—she might well go into labor right aboard the plane. Hadn't the doctors predicted that the birth was within this week? And even then, it is impossible to ignore the babies rolling around inside her, jostling her ribs, battering at her intestines as they signal their impending arrival into the world.

Her whole body is rife with congestion, a voluminous stoppered container of water; every sharp movement marches red spots before her eyes. Nausea rises, coating the back of her throat like slime.

 _Pre-eclampsia… pre-eclampsia…_ chants a warning singsong voice. _Better watch out. With all the stress you're putting yourself in, I'm amazed you haven't miscarried yet…_

 _Shut up,_ Saya tells the voice savagely. _Just shut up._

The babies jolt at her spine, the movement sharp as a spasm. She squeezes her eyes shut.

_I am not going to lose it. I'm going to make it back to Okinawa in one piece._

_It's going to be all right._

She knows full-well the risks of traveling in this state—but she has never been one for meticulous planning. Patience is not in her matrix—action is.

And right now, she is swamped in the need to escape, get away as fast as possible.

She prays that she will be able to hold on until she has reached Omoro. No one there knows she's coming; she'll have to find a cab and get there on her own. She knows her family must be worried about her; she hasn't been in contact with them for several weeks now. She's half-terrified that the babies might come tumbling out before she can get there—her own body, always so reliable, has been betraying her since the pregnancy.

And she's equally terrified that her husband will find her before her family does.

_Solomon…_

_Ohgod._

Already, his memory makes her flinch, induces her with the shrinking guilt of a child who has run away from home and will be severely berated when caught. The recollection of his voice, his face, makes her feel ambivalent and puerile, unsure of her plans, even her own sanity.

But then, he's always had the overwhelming ability to muddle her judgement.

His presence awakens in her the same instincts of oblivion as her yearnings for death, back in the war.

During those nights, she had hoped, with the ruthless immovability of a martyr, to end her life once she'd killed Diva. It had been like her safety net—the one thing she had to fall back upon. She'd yearned for it without joy or expectation; just this thoughtless yearning without meaning.

She'd wanted to die after her mission was over, and the knowledge was a morbid solace.

But she's still alive right now. Still a part of this world. And to stay with a man whose very presence blots out her sense of self—whose mere voice manages to strip her of all logic, lulling her with into that same daze she was lulled toward death…

No.

That isn't living at all.

She isn't sure what it is; her feelings for him, barbed and outsized and transfixing, still overwhelm her—but they have nothing to do with the prerequisites, the essentialities of living.

Deliria and fantasy never can coexist with waking life.

She's learnt this the hard way.

On instinct, Saya's hand closes about the amulet that hangs from a fine silver chain at her throat. A bloodstone, vibrant green speckled with red. A symbol of protection, a fighter's talisman. The stone is cool and hard, reassuring in her grasp. She battens, not so much on its symbolism, as on the memory it calls to mind.

This is the necklace Haji gave to her, before she married Solomon.

A wedding present for the woman he loved, who had bypassed him in favor of another man.

Tears sting Saya's closed eyes, in tandem with the hot ache in her throat.

_Haji…_

Even now—especially now—thinking about him makes her ache. A palpable, overwhelming ache, a slash to her heart. But the pain is activating; it makes her want to move forward, to shake off this desolation and see her journey to its end.

Even absent, his memory draws her into battle, urging her to fight.

To live.

 _To live in this life means to endure,_ Saya thinks. _It means to struggle and fight._

_All this time, I thought I was free of it. But I'm not. I've just been running from it all this time. I've been letting illusions and fantasy rule my life for me, because I'm afraid to live it on my own. I'm too scared to face the truth for what it really is._

_Because when I do, I'll have to face up to my past too._

Her fingers tighten on the bloodstone. Her own pulse hammers hard against her temples.

_All these months, I've been subsisting on limbo, trying to escape reality._

_But I can't escape it._

_I can't hold it off anymore._

Harsh awareness crashes all around her, everything she has been circumventing, delaying the past few months, exploding to drown her.

She is assaulted by total recall, so analogous to Life.

 _So this is why children cry when they come out of the womb_. _They've been spending all those months protected from the rest of the world. But the protection can't last forever. Sooner or later, you'll have to breathe and fight, all on your own._

_That's what you're here for._

_That's what living is all about._

She understands this at last, and feels a bitter upsurge at how long it took her. Because if she'd acknowledged it sooner, this entire debacle could've been prevented. There's so much she wouldn't have to go through—not just her, but Solomon, the rest of her family.

And most of all, Haji, whom she would never have let down.

Tears burn behind her closed eyes.

_I'm so sorry, Haji. I'm so sorry I abandoned you._

_I didn't understand why I needed you before—but I do now, I do…_

She can only pray that Haji will understand this too, and find it in his heart to forgive her.

Abruptly, she feels a sharp spasm against her belly. She grits her teeth until the tremor dissipates. But it only gives way to another, then another. Harder, fiercer than the usual discomfort she's accustomed to. An uncomfortable warmth begins to pool her dark slacks. Saya winces; the color of her clothing makes it hard to tell whether it is blood or worse.

She wants to go to the bathroom to check—but she cannot make herself move. Her whole body, heavy and torpid and gripped by an unshakeable agony, refuses to budge

It is only when the second spasm hits her that she feels a cold chill.

_Ohgod no._

_Please don't let anything happen in here. I'm almost at Okinawa. I'm nearly there._

_I just have to hold on a little longer._

_I can still make it._

Gripping the bloodstone between numb fingertips, Saya has no choice but to gnash her teeth and wait.

* * *

 


	2. Red Diamond

She sees a thousand shards of her own reflection in the gemstone.

A million facets of her face, glittering and sparkling, like a hall of blood-red mirrors. The gem's intense color seems to radiate its own heat. Each angle glows where it catches the light, a sea of scarlet fireflies held quivering within the stone.

The jewel is linked to an elegant gold chain. It rests within a simple black box, the inside lined in white satin.

Saya runs her fingers over the necklace, hesitant. She doesn't move to take it out just yet.

"This is… for me?" she asks.

Solomon gives her a strange fond smile, as though she's said something very silly that he will nonetheless indulge in. "Of course it's for you, Saya. This and anything else that's in my power to give you."

The way he smiles at her, smooth, airy, makes her so self-conscious. His voice always strokes a languid trail along her spine, blooming goosebumps and blushes.

Saya struggles for something to say. "It's beautiful. Thank you."

"My pleasure."

"But… what's the occasion?"

His lips quirk. "Does there always have to be one?"

"Well, no. But—"

"You know, this shade really brings out the color in your eyes. Here, let me show you."

Gently, he sweeps her hair back from her shoulders, exposing her throat. Plucking the necklace from the box, he steps behind her, fastening it around her neck with an offhanded reverence, both gracious and intimate.

Saya shivers as the cold necklace meets her skin, quickly warming to body temperature.

"There we are." Solomon's breath fans warm across her cheek. "See? It looks absolutely perfect."

Saya is silent. The necklace feels heavy; unfamiliar on her skin. Facing the wide mirror in their hotel suite, she studies her reflection.

She is accustomed to bedecking herself in battle-scars, to perfuming herself in blood. Something as innocuous as jewelry still takes getting used to.

Behind her, the evening sun shines through heavy half-drawn drapes. She hears the muffled traffic from Recoleta's streets—imperceptible to human ears, but crystal-clear to her own. Distantly, she can even make out the roar of airplanes, even though Buenos Aires' airport is over nineteen miles off.

Solomon is sparing no expense for their honeymoon. Their hotel still suite staggers Saya with its splendor. The shining marble floors, the winding stairway banisters, the vast canopied beds with pillows like marshmallows and sheets like Chantilly, all hold her as spellbound as a child in a fairytale. Everything, from the furniture to the pearl-tiled bathroom, gleams as though a mirror has been melted and poured across each surface.

Despite spending almost two weeks here, Saya is still half-afraid to touch anything, convinced she will leave smudges.

The sparkling gemstone against her collarbone feels so congruent to this opulent suite. But her plain pink sweatshirt does not emphasize the jewel to its best advantage. The necklace is clearly meant as an accompaniment to eveningwear.

"It would look a lot better on a dress," Saya says, without moving her eyes from her reflection.

Solomon's lips curve in the mirror. "I'll arrange to take you shopping tomorrow. Shoes, handbags, anything you want. The Galerías Pacífico is particularly popular for good branded clothing."

"No, that's not what I meant!"

Solomon chuckles, taking her elbows as though they are about to begin a slow back-to-front dance. "Perhaps not. But all the same, Saya, I want you to enjoy yourself here. In this decade, the tourism industry in Buenos Aires is at its peak. We should make the most of it, shouldn't we, angel?"

She wants to tell him that it is all right. Wasteful shopping is something she can live without. But even as protests arise, she feels a frission of pleasure at the sound of his voice, his endearment.

 _Angel_.

She can't think of anyone who has called her that.

To her guardian Joel, she was both his surrogate daughter and his prized guinea pig. To Red Shield, their greatest weapon and strongest ally. To outsiders, a bloodthirsty monster, a frightening enigma. To her friends and family, simply _Saya_.

But nothing is simple where Solomon is concerned.

"I guess a little shopping won't hurt," she says. "But I really don't want anything too excessive, Solomon. You know that."

"True. I just felt perhaps a change of wardrobe would suit you more."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you prefer to dress casually, and I appreciate that. Simplicity is its own reward. But can you really blame me for wanting to buy you a pretty dress or two? Something in white, perhaps. Do you know what a vision you look in white? It suits you to perfection."

The compliment makes her blush, even as she says, "Solomon, I appreciate the generosity, but I've told you already, I don't need trunkfuls of clothes and shoes. It's getting impossible to pack all these things. I like to travel light."

He offers a wistful smile. "You never really do seem to need anything I give you. That's the conundrum, isn't it?"

She flinches, starting to contradict. But he presses a light fingertip to her lips.

"Hush, no need to get defensive. I know how you used to live before this, but privation doesn't excuse pessimism. You deserve the very best, whether you think so or not, and I want you to have it. You've denied yourself even the simplest pleasures for so long, so why not indulge yourself a little now."

"I thought that's what I was doing all this time."

"I'm going to show you what a vast difference there is between happiness and simple self indulgence." Drawing back, he adds, "Later next week, we'll head out to Cariló. The beaches there are stunning; you'll love them. Plus, the area is very exclusive. It should be a good change of pace from the city."

"All right." Ruefully, she says, "I still can't believe Argentinahas one of the only unpolluted beaches anymore."

"Industrialization has taken its toll on nature, true. The only other untouched shores are at the Bahamas—the ones at Eleuthera are particularly lovely. Come spring, I promise to take you there."

"Why in spring?"

"Well, summer runs the risk of tropical storms, for one. And honestly, the sun there is intolerable." Solomon's right hand slides off her elbow, coming to rest across her belly. "Sunlight is good for the babies. But we can't risk your suffering heatstroke, can we?"

"I'm used to sunlight. It was always sunny in Okinawa."

"Okinawa sunny and Bahamas sunny are two very different things."

"Well…if you say so." She studies his hand in the mirror, spidered across her belly in that tender but strangely possessive gesture that is becoming habitual on his part. When she lifts her gaze back to his, he is looking straight at her, eyes soft and heavy-lidded, indelibly adoring.

Her cheeks turn fiery. She drops her gaze.

It is funny, that even though she's seen that expression so often during their muddled three-tangent courtship, and then all throughout their six months of marriage, yet it still embarrasses her, even as it fills her with this helpless vertigo, as though in a dream of flying.

Or as though standing at a very high cliff—and on the verge of crashing down.

Shaking it off, Saya touches the necklace again. "What is this, exactly? A ruby?"

"It's a red diamond. Very rare. Back in the twenty-first century, this was only one reported to exist, and it wasn't for sale. But during your long sleep, miners in Brazil discovered at least five more—and the Goldberg Corp made the original accessible on the market. I always knew it would look beautiful on you."

She bites her lip, flustered. Solomon gives every impression of carefree calculation, of easy and ordered thought and action—but in some ways he is nearly as impulsive as she.

"Thank you, but… you really shouldn't have. It must have been so expensive."

"It was within my price range, Saya. No worries." He smiles, boyish, refreshing. "Do you know that when this gem was originally cut, they called it the Red Shield? I always thought it was the uncanniest coincidence."

"Really?" Her eyes fix on the gem again, mesmerized by its flickering lights.

She can't understand why it holds her so…frozen. It is beautiful, granted, but there is something deeper that it awakens in her—almost a premonition.

Then it hits her.

The gem is the exact color of a crystallized Chiropteran.

How many nights had she seen this exact shade during the war? Shattered scarlet scabs, exploding all around, each roaring beast pinioned to death by her hand. The crystal pieces always gave off the stench of dried blood. The smell stayed with her for days after, evoking nausea and malaise.

Suddenly, Saya can smell it again.

Wincing, she drops her hand from the gem. Her flesh prickles, electric. But it is hard to tell whether it is the memory, or something more immediate. Since her pregnancy, her body seems to be constantly boiling, like a pot over a flame. She is often prone to dizzy spells and hot flushes.

Solomon seems to intuit the rise in her temperature. She is startled to feel his hand on her forehead.

Gently, he turns her to face him. "Are you all right, Saya?"

"I… yes. I'm fine."

"I hope I haven't overexerted you with today's sightseeing. It's been very hot the whole day, so it wasn't the best thing for you to be outdoors so long. But you seemed to be enjoying yourself."

"I was—I mean, I am."

And she means it too. The past week, she has gotten the chance to finally explore Buenos Aries—the city that has been on her wish-list since time immemorial.

Solomon whisked her all across the capital's sprawling barrios, through cutting-edge boutiques and baroque avenues, regaling her with the city's history, the origins of its belle époque architecture and its ports, with a surety that no doubt came from having spent over a century traveling worldwide.

She scuba dived at Puerto Madryn, floating through endless blue sea, surrounded by underwater flora and petting vibrantly-colored fish. She explored the lush emerald stretch of the Japanese Gardens, basking in sunlight and sloshing lakeside bridges. She explored the San Telmo neighborhood, whose ancient cobblestones put her in mind of those quaint Paris streets—

—Or no, not Paris—Paris took her back to the war, to a screaming Irene and drumming rainfall and gray skies, and she can't think about that—she _won't_.

She thinks, instead, of everything she read about Buenos Aires from her days in the Zoo. In the 1800s, the city was a nucleus for liberal ideas, typified by colonial buildings and bustling docklands, and home to the Teatro Colón, one of the grandest opera houses in the world. She'd yearned to walk its streets, to explore every square. Remembered chattering about it to Haji during their boating trips, making impractical plans about what they'd do there.

She'd planned to travel the world, sword at her side, and take him with her.

And now here she is, decades after, putting that plan to fruition. Except both Haji and her sword are glaringly absent.

 _Stop_.

_Stop thinking about that._

"Are you sure you're all right, Saya?" Solomon presses. "You're not feeling dizzy again, are you?"

Saya shakes her head. "I'm fine, Solomon. Really. Please don't worry about me."

"Surely you understand how out-of-the-question that would be." Smiling, he combs her hair back from her face. The whisper-light contact that sends a shiver through her.

Haji did this all the time too. But the simple gesture is startlingly different on both men. Haji's touch was always decorous, subtle—his fingertips were cool, tapering as velvet spiders. Solomon's hands are more squarish, with blunter fingers and elegant semi-circles of nails. Nimble yet more calloused, no doubt from his days as a soldier in the Great War.

His touch radiates an astonishing heat. He is much more proprietary, confident, in every way he handles her.

Then again, that has a great deal to do with the fact that he is her husband.

 _Husband_.

Strange how, even now, that word sounds so foreign to her. It bears a peculiar weight, rather like her sparkling necklace.

Who knew she would live to survive the war, to get married and bear children? Who knew that she would share her life and her bed with a man who was a former enemy—and one of her sister's Chevaliers? Or that the arrangement would feel so natural, so… comfortable?

Existence is uncanny that way. Time seems prognostic in turning unrealities to truths, anomalies to liaisons.

 _What will be, will be,_ as Haji once said.

She squeezes her eyes shut.

_Stop it._

She hasn't suffered these revisitings about her first Chevalier for quite a while now. She can't understand what is wrong with her. She's made her decision already; she loves Haji, it is true, but she's resolved herself to her ultimate choice, to marrying Solomon. There are too many reminders that Haji's presence awakens in her, too many remnants of her own twisted past.

All the things she has done wrong and can never take back—to him as well as to everyone else.

Everything she wants _never_ to think about again.

Now that the war is over, she craves a fresh start to her life. And in Solomon, that possibility presents itself so beautifully.

With him, she just might be able to move on, to forget everything.

Their wedding marks a new chapter in her life, one without regret—and her mind has promptly blocked out anything preceding it.

Saya winces. Perhaps she really is tired. Maybe more tired than she's letting on, even to herself. That has to be the reason for her jitters.

She feels Solomon's hand on her waist. In the next instant, he sweeps her up in his arms.

"S-Solomon, what're you—?"

"It might be best if you lie down awhile."

"But I'm not sleepy—"

"Come now, Saya. Please don't be stubborn. You feel even warmer than usual. "

Saya hesitates, then concedes, giving in to the surety of his grip. But even through it, she senses an edge of anxiety. He is always so worried about her—worried by her silences, her withdrawals, by her slightest burst of ill health or weakness.

There is fear there—as if he thinks something might rip her away from him, as if he might still lose her to some mysterious force.

Even now, a part of Saya feels overwhelmed by the responsibility of having him in her life. The intensity of his feelings is almost frightening. It makes her feel as though she cannot possibly handle such an extravagant capacity, as though she constantly has something to measure up to, although she's unsure what. His presence can be peremptory at times, even demanding. He insists, often and without discussion, that he have his way in everything, that she trust him enough to agree to his methods and means.

But this inflexibility is always supplanted by the touching patience he exhibits with her, by the excesses of tenderness and attention he lavishes on her. Her each facet brings him an unmitigated delight—from every little change in her figure as the days go by, to the shape of her lips when she smiles, to the different shades in her eyes by twilight and nightfall.

What makes her laugh, what makes her cry, how she views the world around her, what she wants from her life and why.

She delights him just by _being_ , just by allowing him the privilege to touch her.

So astonishing. She cannot remember when her existence ever delighted anyone. When it did anything except cause massacre and misery.

The only other man who did live and breathe for her… is not a part of her life now.

The soft mattress seems to rise up to greet her. Solomon sets her gently into it, hovering over her for a moment. His face fills her whole field of vision, blocking out the intricate hangings of the canopied bed. Blond hair falls in wispy curls over his eyes. Without quite meaning to, Saya reaches out and pushes a lock away from his face.

Smiling, Solomon leans into the contact. His bride's displays of affection are still rare enough to warrant delight on his part.

"I know I promised to show you every part of the city," he says. "But at the same time, I don't want you to push yourself."

Saya manages a smile. "I'm fine, Solomon. I'm not made of glass, you know."

"Perhaps not. But I want this to be a chance for you to relax. You've been through so much pain in the past, Saya. Give me a chance to make it up to you now. I've more than earned the privilege to spoil you."

Leaning in, his lips press to hers, softly at first, then lingering. Strange, how each time the touch sparks a hot, low-pitched hum throughout her extremities. Slides right down inside her like a bell of sweet bourbon. She responds before she even realizes it, threading an arm around his neck to keep him in place.

When he draws back at last, she sees his gratified smile. "I'm glad you aren't _too_ tired, at any rate," he drawls.

"I wasn't tired to begin with, until you put me in bed—" She is cut off by a yawn that practically swallows her face.

His smile widens, all warmth, but with an edge of mischief. "You were saying?" He sobers. "What is it? Are you having another dizzy spell?"

"No, it's nothing. I'm just… a little winded, that's all. Don't worry about me."

Solomon smoothes her hair. "I'll order up room service for you. You can eat and take a nap for a little bit."

"No, please, that's fine, Solomon. Really. I'll be up in a little while. I want to have dinner out in town."

He straightens. "Then I'll make reservations at the reception. They're serving parrillada at one of restaurants closeby. I'm sure you'll enjoy a sampling."

"Parrillada?"

"It's this mixed grill of steak cuts, Saya. You'll like it."

"All right." For a man who rarely eats human food, Solomon's knowledge of worldwide cuisines startles her. It isn't as though Chevaliers need to eat, after all. And Diva, for the little knowledge Saya had of her sister's lifestyle, never seemed inclined toward human food.

Humans _had_ been food, where her twin was concerned.

Saya shakes off her plummeting thoughts. "How do you know all this, exactly? I mean, I know you don't eat personally."

Solomon chuckles. "Perhaps not. But I have been doing business with humans for several decades now. And a majority of them do like to eat. It's easy to pick these things up during dinners and luncheons with associates."

"And breakfasts with them too?" Saya says, before she can stop herself.

"On occasion, yes."

"With female associates?"

Solomon's eyebrow lifts, eyes twinkling with amusement. "Do I detect a note of disapproval?"

Her cheeks go warm. "No. I was just…curious."

A half-lie. It always bothers her, the little reminders of his life before, as CEO of Cinq Flèches, on the enemy's side. The privileges allotted to him then, the bevies of anonymous beauties he no doubt courted, the shady operations he was often involved in. All owing to his allegiance to Diva, to Amshel Goldsmith—to embracing the values that _she_ had struggled for decades to suppress.

It is not jealousy, so much as unease. It makes her realize there's so much about him she still doesn't know at all.

Reaching out, Solomon touches her chin, sweet and coaxing. "Saya, what's bothering you?"

"Hm? Oh, it's nothing."

"Of course. Except when a woman says 'nothing', she generally means the opposite." He smoothes her hair back. "Please don't go thinking morbid thoughts again, sweetheart. You know how much it bothers me when you get this way. I can't stand seeing you unhappy."

This rouses her from her lull. "But… I'm not."

"Aren't you?" He smiles, with a softer edge. "I hope so, Saya. I wouldn't want this to be a one-sided endeavor. In the brief time we've been married, I've… been granted something I never dared to imagine or hope for. So it's very important to me, that you be happy in turn. It's what I want most from you. The only thing I want from you."

His heavy gaze seeps through her, warming her inside-out. Blush deepening, Saya looks away. "Um…you know, you can stop complimenting me any time now."

"Oh? I wasn't aware I was." Leaning in, he presses a light kiss to her mouth. "I see no reason to make a secret of being happy. And with time, I hope that you'll come to feel the same way."

"I…I hope so too."

Solomon smiles, mouth descending to hers again. It is meant to be a brief kiss. But it quickly turns deep and hungry. Sighing, Saya melts under the contact. Relishing how it dissolves all thought, keeping her solely in the moment.

Sometimes she wonders if it isn't a malady, or pure madness: are other people like this, gripped by a near-constant fever that seems to rise from an even deeper place than desire? She feels like a symbol from a Caeretan vase, stark black silhouettes of mythological heroes poised to vanquish the Hydra: for every dark, slithering threat subdued, another replaces it.

But she's also never in her life had so much of this—solace, self-indulgence, satisfaction—and the dizzy-making reality of someone so well-suited to bestowing it.

The cellphone on the dresser emits a high _beep_.

Solomon exhales in mild frustration. Reluctantly, he draws away to answer the phone. Saya catches dribbles of conversation from the other end, and Solomon's calm replies. She can't grasp the gist of it, but intuits that a colleague wants to meet with him.

She sighs. Solomon has a vast network of associates—reliable but not intimate friends—and she finds herself disliking all of them. Fast-talking men with crisp designer suits and impeccably styled hair, who always behave as if their time is worth more than anyone else's, who are always caught up in cellphone conversations and last minute dictations, punctuating each sentence with manicured fingers and expensive cigarette smoke.

They defer to her with an almost patronizing courtesy, _Madame Goldsmith_ this and _Madame Goldsmith_ that, treating her like a cross between a diamond figurine and a slow-witted child. Something to be admired and handled with care, but not to be taken seriously.

When she remarks on this to Solomon, he simply chuckles and tells her not to take offense—it's just business.

Which, oddly, annoys her more.

When Solomon returns to her bedside, he looks suitably contrite. The expression puts her in mind of the Lycee ball, when he was forced to cut their dance short due to more pressing concerns. "Saya, I hope you don't mind. I have to see a few people downstairs."

"People?"

"A few associates in town would like to meet me. I specifically told my secretary to take any business-related calls on my behalf—I didn't want to be disturbed while I was with you. But it's perfectly disgusting how these details just slip her attention." Sighing, he pushes a cowlick of hair off his forehead. "I shouldn't be long, but it isn't a problem for you, is it?"

Saya tries to keep the disappointment from her voice. "No, it's… all right."

"Wonderful." Reaching out, he takes her hand, kissing the inside of her wrist with a casual intimacy. "Hopefully you'll feel better by the time I've returned. I'd hate the thought of cutting our tour short if you weren't feeling upto it."

"I'm fine, Solomon. Really. I'll be one my feet in a little bit."

"Wear the necklace, won't you? With that pink dress? Do you remember the party we went to last week? Schone's supposed wife had everyone gaping at her emerald choker. I hadn't the heart to tell her it wasn't real."

This makes Saya giggle, even as she chides, " _Solomon_ , that's very unkind!"

"It isn't as long it makes you smile, Saya. That's all that matters to me." He touches her cheek. "Can you keep smiling this way until I get back?"

"Sorry, but that would be a little painful."

"Well then, consider it revenge for how I feel when you _aren't_ smiling at all."

One last kiss, and he is gone before she can reply.

Left by herself, Saya listens to the murky drone of traffic outside. The suite is so vast it dwarfs her like an insect. Lying alone in the big bed, she is struck by how empty it feels without anyone to share it. Without anyone to talk to. She almost considers phoning her family, back in Okinawa—but she isn't sure of the time differences in Argentina and Japan.

They all might be asleep right now, and she doesn't think Kai would appreciate being roused from sleep to hear about food and shopping.

To distract herself, Saya studies the etchings on the canopy above, imagining shapes woven among them. Of course, it isn't long before one of the patterns takes the guise of a cello-case, the other of a bloody sword.

Wincing, Saya rolls to her side, drawing her knees to her stomach.

She hasn't told Solomon the whole truth; she really is very tired. Her whole body feels leaden—but as always, her mind whirs on overdrive, like an electrical device left plugged in too long. The sound of her own breathing, her heartbeat, are unbearably loud in the silence.

These days, falling asleep is almost impossible for her. Her whole cycle is askew: she attributes it in part to her pregnancy, and part to constantly traversing between different time-zones. The peak of nightfall always leaves her wide awake and agitated.

She doesn't want to recall that this is the hour when Chiropterans once prowled at their prime.

And she used to hunt them—flanked by her sword, and Haji.

Suddenly she can almost _feel_ it—metal singing through the air as she slices her katana down. The spurt of hot blood, the insane bellow of each Chiropteran she hacks to shreds. Haji's silver daggers flying all around her, so close she can hear them whistle past her ears, striking at oncoming beasts, giving her leeway for the lethal deathblow.

Dodge, strike, decimate. Shattered stone and red splinters arcing the air, a visual fanfare to the battle's climax.

And all through it, her Chevalier's constant presence at her side. Bearing, as always, that inexplicable feeling of comfort, even amidst the carnage.

It isn't natural, is it, for her to compare those nightmarish decades to the superlative luxury of today, and to feel such a nostalgia for them?

Saya bites her lip. Without quite realizing it, she digs her hand into the pocket of her jeans, bringing out something wrapped in a white handkerchief. She unwraps it slowly. The dim light catches in the fine silver links of the necklace's chain, casting a dull white fleck on the attached stone.

Jade green, speckled in crimson dots so vivid they seem to jump out of the contrasting surface.

A bloodstone.

It was Haji's gift to her—a gift she is surprised to find herself carrying on her person, at all times, even though she never wears it.

As though she has begun to rely on her Chevalier so much that, without him, she is projecting her uncertainty onto the necklace now.

Which is, of course, ridiculous.

_He said it was a talisman for health and protection, that's all._

_He wanted you to have it, as a wedding gift._

_It's nothing more serious than that._

Haji is no longer a fixed facet of her reality. Despite how long they've been together, their paths have diverged now.

Her life today is intertwined to Solomon's, to the babies she will soon have. She is free to travel, to live her dream and see the world. It thrills her to have this second chance, to breathe easy and do all the things she was so deprived of during the war. She can live however she wants.

But even as she tells herself this, Saya is surprised to feel her fingers tightening around the cool bloodstone. If she closes her eyes, she can almost imagine it is one of Haji's fingers.

Which too, is completely ridiculous.

But also the tiniest bit comforting.


	3. Opium

They began to travel immediately after the wedding.

Solomon handled all the arrangements and expenses. Saya offered to chip in, but to him, the concept seemed outlandish and unheard of. He wanted this to be a chance for her to rest; he insisted on managing all the details of their trip and gently but firmly forbade her from lifting a finger.

For Saya, who more or less managed all her own affairs since her mission against Diva, who always took charge of her own welfare, this sudden relinquishing of control was a bit disconcerting.

But also a relief—an opportunity to not have to think, to organize something for once in her life.

Almost…freeing.

She bids Kai and her family goodbye at Naha airport, amid much laughter and chatter. Haji is not present, but she has expected that. Seeing him there, so alone and abject in a smiling crowd of well-wishers… she cannot face it. Better for him to stay apart. Better for both of them to keep their distance, at least until the sting has faded.

If it ever will.

There is no time for her to wonder what he is doing, or to think about him at all—three hours later, she and Solomon are on their way to Bangkok.

Solomon settles her provisionally at the Peninsula hotel's honeymoon suite, and gets to work making arrangements for the tour they will be taking until the babies arrive.

From the glittering monolith of their hotel room, Saya watches Bangkok's cityscape sparkle and flash all around her, feeling as if it isn't a reality, but an abstraction. She almost hesitates in venturing outdoors, meshing into the human tumult, because she is afraid the city will vanish like mist.

Here she is at last, the war over, free to travel the world—and the sensation holds a gravity that is both enchanting and frightening.

 _I'm so glad I have you all to myself now,_ Solomon murmurs to her. _You can be free of all that pain you put yourself through. You can learn to be happy. I'll spend every moment of my life ensuring it._

She notices that he seems to be caught in a private whirlwind, an elated verve of motion and speech. His words come more quickly than usual and his eyes always shine. Part of him wants to show Saya every sight and sound on the planet there is worth seeing—the other part of him wants to cosset her behind high-security suites and layers of curtain like a fragile and priceless artwork not meant for the vulgar eye.

At times she catches him looking at her, feels him reaching out to touch her, as though to reassure himself she is not an illusion.

In his eyes, she sees reflected the same incredulous wonder she feels at finally being able to travel the world, at finally being free to _live_.

The first few weeks, the initial lethargy and morning-sickness have yet to take their toll. Solomon suggests they make use of it by exploring the city together.

The days are a fascinating blur to Saya, consisting of wandering through crowded bazaars huddled shyly beside Solomon, exploring shimmering golden temples and marketplaces rife with exotic scents and colorful clothes, riding sleek skytrains across the glittering riverside, wandering vast towering galleries—all the while avoiding pickpockets in crowds.

They dine at restaurants of pristine white tablecloths and silver cutlery, where the staff defers to them like royalty and platters of food unfurl in an endless delectable procession. Saya's appetite is sustained on lobster au gratin and freshwater eel, on unsweetened pineapple juice and jasmine tea, boxes of champagne truffles and forkfuls of pastry that Solomon feeds directly to her mouth.

She tries not to dwell on her thorny past, on all the bloodshed that looms like a shadow over her head. Indeed, she avoids thinking about the war at all. Bitter recollections creep up on her once in a while—but she is quick to ward them off.

There is no point in remembering something that can never be changed, she tells herself. Staying in the present keeps one sane and strong.

Hindsight only shatters your psyche beyond repair.

Solomon seems ready to oblige to her decision—indeed, he is eager to accommodate to her every whim, cater to her every need. He takes an unabashed delight in showing Saya a different world, a world of obsequious chauffeurs and Argentine strawberries, of operas and éclairs, pristine white islands and rainbow-petaled roses.

He wants her to feel at home in these settings and venues—he wants to mold her to this new environment, both inside and out. Laughter is the new language he wants her to speak.

Saya tries not to feel embarrassed when he buys her wardrobes of dresses, posh little handbags and glittery chokers with matching earrings. She can barely stand on the high-heeled shoes he gets her; the perfumes he gives her are so aromatic she is almost afraid to sprintz them on—and she still goes beet-red recalling that one instance he points out some daringly risqué lingerie for her, asking her if she'd like to buy it.

She can't say she is used to pampering herself to such extremes. Her needs during the war were stringently minimalist. She has long grown past her days of vanity during the Zoo.

This sudden indulgence … is a little overwhelming.

 _The time when you had to deprive yourself is long gone, Saya,_ Solomon tells her with a gentle smile. _I want you to be happy. I want to make up for every deprivation you suffered during the war. Didn't I promise to fulfill your every wish?_

And Saya doesn't know what to say to that.

Indeed, Solomon's constant presence overwhelms her on many levels. She hasn't realized, until now, how accustomed she is to silences, to relative stillness and solitude. It is an unavoidable upshot of Haji's company, to all the decades she has spent with him. There was always an innate hush between them; they rarely relied on words or gestures to get any message across.

Everything was conducted in a pantomime, without a second thought or word.

Now, in this idyllic new epoch, she is overcome with an awkwardness that often makes her shy. In many ways, she and Solomon really are practical strangers. She has no knowledge of his childhood, what foods he liked to eat or where he studied. Solomon knows nothing of her life in Okinawa, or of her bygone days at the Zoo.

But he answers any question she puts forth to him; he is eager to talk to her for hours if she wishes it, to offer any personal revelations she cares to hear about, to encourage her to share her own. He takes a rapt inventory of her in every spare moment, seems to enjoy breaking down every portico of her words to their most straightforward components.

Which was frightening, unnerving, when he was on Diva's side—but which is, in these new and titillating circumstances, a flustering boon.

And in the moments where he takes her hand, touches her, all Saya's uncertainty melts into delicious consolation. Each night she lies twined with him in bed, cool bedsheets and whorls of blond hair knotted between her trembling fingers, each fervid interchanged kiss as eloquent as verbal discourses—all the awkwardness dissolves, yielding to the mesmeric candor of sheer sensation.

She's always been better at handling action than at dissecting emotion.

Indeed, it is startling, how easy it is to accept him in her bed. Her _life_. She half-expects sex to change everything. Make the world seem different. More... grown-up, maybe. In a way, it does, and doesn't. Sex makes colors seem brighter, makes her blood run hotter. It atrophies her sour rush of regrets, even as it fills her with fluttery new feelings she can't define.

As their physical relationship deepens, Solomon's attention becomes a daily tonic. Something that stirs her to the breaking point, yet leaves her afterwards so blissfully replete.

Day by day, they carve a niche for themselves, in which they shunt past and future alike and settle into a multicolored present. Shifting circadian rhythms from night to day, Saya allows herself a taste of the lushness of Solomon's realm. They build a loose routine, the first in her disjointed years since she'd been a carefree teenager at Omoro. Festivals, floating markets and dance-halls by night; quiet promenades across shorelines and the tops of skyscrapers by dawn. In afternoons, after sharing a languid hot soak together in the tub, Solomon watches her devour heaps of piping-hot room-service. Trays of sticky-sweet rice with diced mangoes, and seafood-topped pancakes slathered in tart chili-sauce, and icy glasses of blood-laced passionfruit punch that he sips straight from her mouth. Evenings find her sprawled heavy-limbed and senseless in bed. Exhausted by the night's excitement, and by the delicious _coup de foudre_ of Solomon's tender ravishings.

There is an imperfect perfection in their lovemaking. She's never felt so appreciated—so worshiped—as she does in Solomon's regard.

Nor so afraid.

The war has molded her to a world of severity and self-denial. But in this satisfying new partnership, even the most mundane aspects disquiet her.

Eating dinner with him; twining their fingers under the table as she forks food off her plate, and letting him taste each flavor off her lips afterward. Racing with him—Chiropteran speed and strength a veritable match for hers, whetting her preternatural abilities under his bright regard, as if he is watching a rare, poisonous orchid in bloom. Sharing a bed with him—lying spooned against his warmth in boneless languor after their fierce couplings, each overlapping the next, as if they are starving for each other. Feeling him memorize her expression each time they are finished—sloe-eyed and flushed with satisfaction, her swollen lips parted on gasps—the sight seeming to fill him with both bliss and ever-recurring greed.

And sensing, through it all, his anxiety. That she will disappear, that some unforeseen disaster will strike, and this grace period will end.

She fears the same thing.

But differently.

Like Belle in _Beauty and the Beast_ , she feels caught in an enchanted castle. Surrounded by sumptuous luxury, but wary of its dark nature. There is a duality too, in her view of Solomon. Often, his desire frightens her in its enormity. Makes her shudder to imagine what damage it could cause if misused. Touchingly kind as he is, he can also be demanding, impatient, autocratic and possessive.

In love, he is more a Peter Pan than a Prince Charming.

Not Haji at all.

But the more time she spends with him, the deeper her fondness grows. It isn't just the blood-based alchemy between them. Isn't that he is helping her discover needs, sensations, that she'd brutally repressed in the war—and so avidly satisfying them. His very presence is a novelty, unlooked-for, unexpected. She'd Awakened as if from a dimension of Hell. A past so horrific it tore her apart. Solomon's presence now is a gentle healing-over.

The magician whose elixir erases old ills, if not cures them.

Out of sight, out of mind—isn't that the saying?

From Bangkok, she and Solomon take a tour by sea, coasting across the hem of the Philippines to dock at Manila. The first few days aboard the luxury cruiseliner, Saya is too seasick to venture any further than their cabin. Solomon tends to her with cold compresses and orange juice, propping her head on his shoulder to keep her vision balanced and applying firm pressure to her wrists ( _it staves off nausea, angel_ ), soothing her with an open view to the glittering high sea sunset, and plans of where they will be traveling next.

Saya finds herself drowning in a dazzling kaleidoscope of new locations, an intoxicating phantasmagoria of sight and sound. Each more incredible than the last, but constantly altering, shifting in shape and setting. Vivid blue expanses of ocean and mysterious green stretches of jungle, gold pyramids and majestic Colosseums. Poland, Casablanca, Kiev, Budapest. Sunny Spain and breezy Switzerland. Sailing gondolas and shimmering rainfall in Venice; late lazy suppers and brimming wine goblets in Vienna.

She tries to adapt to the lavishness of her new lifestyle, tries hard not to feel guilty over how much she is enjoying herself. The world is no longer imposing or sinister. Suddenly it is an enchanting cocoon, within which she can hide from the remorse of her past, from all the things that still need to be rectified and gainsaid.

She yearns to shut out all the precedent agonies of the war. Solomon is her doorway to that, and in his power, she entrusts the key to her self-willed oblivion.

She tries not to think about Haji too much. Doesn't like to imagine what life might be for him, what he might be doing while she is traveling the world. Part of her hopes that he will try to be happy. For his own sake, and for hers. Part of her hopes he will try his best to move on, forget her.

Except everytime she thinks about him with anyone else, she feels physically sick.

She has been in his company a long time— _too long_ , Solomon mutters when he thinks she can't hear him—and in her mind, she still regards Haji as _hers_ , like her sword or her fingertips. He is always an inextricable part of her life, something constantly felt if not always seen—and the idea of him with someone else is like a blade slashing at her guts.

But it isn't her place, nor her right, to object if it does happen.

But her moments to reflect this are rare. At Solomon's side, she has little opportunity for sadness—her husband seems to bear a trayload of earthly sweets in his hands, dropping them one by one into her mouth, luring her into the delicious vortex of another existence.

To a life where everything glows and shimmers. Where every need, no sooner voiced, is seen to and satisfied.

Where there is no looking back or apologizing—for herself or for anything else.

It is delightful, breathtaking—it goes beyond anything she has ever allowed herself to dream for. In this new dimension of textured satin and baroque lace, gleaming lobbies and Baltic caviar, her old life seems so separate, so…abstract.

Spilling blood, icy blades and unending insomnia, cannot mesh with the superlative luxury that surrounds her.

And nor too, can Haji.

Which is precisely why it baffles Saya, whenever she finds herself thrashing awake in the middle of the night, to find hot tears spilling down her cheeks, and her Chevalier's name tumbling from her lips like a gasp of fresh air between drugged gulps of opium.


	4. Altair and Vega

**CW: Mentions of suicide/self-harm**

* * *

The Milky Way is a weeping gash across the moonless sky.

Stars sweep the night, lucid pearls across black velvet; in the distance, city lights glimmer, throwing an eerie multicolored smear across the seaside. Seated atop the high promonotory, Haji feels wind stir at his hair, sending dark locks fluttering about his face. The air is cold and salty, tasting of salt and rimey ocean froth. A hundred feet below him, waves crash high and white against jagged upthrust rocks.

Exhaling, Haji lifts his face to the sky. The stars above bring a deceptive semblance of life to his eyes.

He has lived a long time, but it is startling that no matter how many decades creep by, the stars never lose their lustor. How many nights has he navigated by them, with Saya at his side, during their journey to defeat Diva? How many nights during Saya's Long Sleep, has he stood at the highest points in each city, stringing constellations among them?

It is an old saying that it is impossible to count all the stars, to imprint their patterns within memory.

And Haji, who has known that hypnotic landscape for decades now, who has had ample opportunity to learn every inch of it, silently agrees.

No matter how intimately you know something, there are certain facets to it that even you cannot anticipate or grasp.

And the same is true of people.

_Saya…_

Haji closes his eyes, wind whistling against his ears, numbing his nose and cheeks. But he can barely feel it. His entire body feels bruised—or rather, in the state preceding a bruise. He knows everything will be discolored and aching in a few hours' time, the agony making it impossible to think or even breathe—but at the moment, all he feels is an oppressive numbness, as though he is frozen alive.

For a second, he thinks of warm hands touching his face, soaking his skin with heat. Warm lips ghosting across his brow, soft and moist as tears. The glitters of that sweet familiar smile, whispering his name between curved lips.

_Haji..._

In the next instant, he shuts out the whimsy.

No point in imagining kisses, caresses, that will never be vouchsafed to him. That belong now to another man, and are no longer his to treasure or anticipate.

He is alone here. And without Saya, he always will be.

His eyes burn with the impulse to tears, but even that release is beyond him. Not even playing the cello tonight can bring him solace. He can barely stand to touch it, barely summon the energy to lift the bow. It seems as though he has completely lost that capacity, that innate desire for motion or thought.

As though he has completely lost… the urge for life itself.

Behind him, a familiar but unwelcome voice chants:

" _Every breeze that blows, brings your scent to me… Every bird that sings, calls out your name to me. Every dream that appears, brings your face to me…_ "

Haji does not turn around; his acute hearing has heralded the intruder's presence a mile away. He does not move as Nathan darts lightly out from the dark underbrush behind him, materializing like an imp from the shadows.

"… _Every glance at your face, has left its trace with me_ ," Nathan recites, his voice carrying high and loud across the seaside. " _I am yours, I am yours… whether near or far. Your grief is mine, all mine, wherever you are…_ "

Haji makes no reply. He watches from the corner of his eye, as Nathan bows as though to a cheering crowd of spectators. Straightening, the elder Chevalier turns to face Haji with a brilliant smile. "Sorry. The sonnet's just so apropos to the mood. But of course, you're too young to know the poet."

"Nizami ye Ganjavi," Haji says tonelessly.

Nathan's lip curls, incredulous and amused. "Impressive. I didn't think you had the slightest interest in literature."

Haji does not answer.

"I figured you'd be here. I mean, really, there's all the elements of dramatic tragedy practically _screaming_ all around you. Starry sky, city lights, stormy ocean. Add a sulking Chevalier to the mix, and you have a winning combo. If this were a play, your position right now would be what we call a _catharsis_ , Haji. The audience would be bawling bucketloads over you."

The Chevalier gives no reply.

Nathan's intruive chatter is the last thing he needs right now; ever since Saya has awakened from her Long Sleep, the flamboyant Chevalier has been like a tumor in Haji's brain with his insinuating tirades and merciless taunting. After Vietnam, when Saya had sliced off Haji's hand, he had been unsurprised to find himself sinking into the speechless torpor of depression.

Nathan was _sliced in half_ by Saya at the MET, yet the experience has not borne so much as a dent of his high-spirited antics.

But then again, the difference there lies solely in the emotions.

Nathan sidles closer, his feet making absolutely no sound across the rocks. His eyes are soft with enigmatic assessment. "I'm sure you don't want me to interrupt while you're getting your brood on, but I felt it necessary to check up on you."

Haji looks him askance.

"Tut tut. It's out of no personal inclination—or no, wait," Nathan puts a musing finger on his chin, letting a faint smirk play through. "Maybe just a little. At a time like this, I figured a little mood lightening was necessary."

Haji glances away without answering.

"What, you don't think I can pull it off? Y'know, esthetically speaking, you'd probably be the toughest audience I ever took on—but I've always found a good challenge…stimulating. Makes the rewards all the more satisfying. You think so too, don't you, Haji?"

"What do you want?" Haji demands without raising his voice. Against Nathan's gregarious overtones, his own strikes a chord that is deathlike in its flatness.

Nathan does not appear the least bit cowed. If anything his smile widens. But there is a certainty in his eyes, something that renders his face more wise than disdainful.

Still smiling, he leans against a boulder at the corner, crossing his booted feet at the ankles. "Hm, guess we have veered a little off the topic, haven't we? Well, I blame you, Haji. You have to be one of the most abominably distracting men alive—although in this case, not for reasons you think."

Haji does not respond.

"I'm surprised you aren't hiding behind your trusty cello tonight. That's a first. Looks like the gods too, are fond of a joke."

No reply.

Nathan tilts his head, scintillating blue eyes fixed on Haji. "So what are you planning to do now, anyway? Join a monastery? Take up painting? Pole dancing? Or maybe you'd like to get into _real_ showbiz?—I can give you some pointers there. Does underwear-modeling appeal to you? You have the perfect look for it. And I'm sure it would be quite comforting to Saya, seeing twenty-foot-long billboards of you pasted all across the country in nothing but a marble bag."

"If you have nothing useful to say, Nathan, please leave."

Nathan clutches his chest as though shot. "Yeowch. Someone is testy this evening. That time of the month again, Haji?"

"Shut up."

"And baby's talking dirty! Will the wonders never cease?"

Haji's expression does not shift in the slightest.

The elder Chevalier cocks his head, eyes shrewd and watchful. In the space of an eyeblink, he has abandoned his spot and is right at Haji's side, movements transmuting to a violet blur. "Well, if you're going to be such a sourpuss about it, I'll get to the point. You know Saya's leaving to travel with Solomon tonight, of course."

Haji gives no reply, but his silence is lividly eloquent.

"Well, since your fair lady's butchering days are far behind her, she asked me to give you this, seeing as there was no one else who knew how to reach you." With dramatic flourish, Nathan reveals the sheathed sword that has been strapped along his spine, presenting it before Haji like a stolen trophy.

Haji stares, but makes no move to take it. "This…is Saya's sword."

"Yes."

"Why would she give it to me?"

Nathan shrugs, twirling the weapon one-handed like a baton. "Apparently, Saya felt you could keep it safe. And really, it's not like she has a vault she could just chuck this into."

"Why not simply return it to Red Shield?"

"She made it pretty clear it was supposed to go to _you_ , boyo."

Haji shakes his head.

He cannot bring himself to touch the sword. The very sight of it brings back too many memories—memories he can no longer allow to be a part of his thoughts, or indeed, even a part of his reality. Without Saya, their recollection seems meaningless; it is as though everything has plunged into a nebulous unfeeling blur.

He wants to scream, to just break out of this too-brittle barrier, scream and scream until he can no longer see or think anymore—but even that feels impossible, just another triviality he can find neither the effort nor the purpose for.

Glancing away from Nathan's sharp gimlet eyes, he murmurs, "That sword should be at Saya's side. It belongs to her."

The older Chevalier exhales; his voice is low with a delicacy that is almost like contemplation. "I think that's one of the reasons she wanted you to have it. Make a matched pair."

Haji glances at Nathan, not understanding. But the other man's expression is impossible to decipher. He is just looking at Haji, not mocking or playful, but strangely earnest.

Haji hesitates for a moment, then takes the sword from him.

Nathan watches him put it away, within the folds of his coat, almost like a parent making sure a child is drinking his entire glass of milk. After a moment's pause, he perches himself on a flat stone beside Haji, wind ruffling his hair like parade streamers. When he speaks, his voice is light, but with a buoyancy that suggests a particular seriousness.

"Say, Haji—are you just going to loll here? After the presentation you gave at the wedding—all stoic, silent-movie idol—I was actually looking forward to an outburst on your part. Some sort of catastrophe—and _everyone_ knows catastrophe equals _denouement_. I've always wondered how you'd behave if you finally snapped."

"I plan to do nothing rash."

"Fascinating passive sentence construction. So typical of you."

Haji does not answer.

"It's to be expected, of course. You won't kill yourself. Not literally, in any case. Not as long as Saya still exists. Even if, without her, that's all you seem to be doing; existing for the sake of existing. On one level, it's touching. On the other, nauseatingly maudlin."

No response.

"But hell, this has to be your worst nightmare come true, right? You're probably even _hating_ Saya just a little. I mean, if this isn't two-faced backtracking, I'm not sure what is. Swearing to love one man for eternity, and running off with another? Talk about Face Heel Turn. But like they say, the higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of its behind."

Silence.

Nathan ignores his victim's unresponsiveness. He leans back with his weight propped on his hands, gaze taking in the panoply of stars. "You know, it's funny. No matter how long I've lived, I never get tired of that view. There's just so much drama going on in there."

Haji's eyes shift to Nathan. "Drama?"

The older Chevalier smirks, insolently knowing. "What? Oh, don't _tell_ me you're ignorant about the constellations."

Haji shakes his head no.

"Oh really? Know those two?" His long finger aims at the line of stars on either side of the Milky Way. Three on one side, four on the other.

Haji's eyes follow Nathan's finger mechanically. His voice is inflectionless. "Altair and Vega."

"Correct." The elder's lips curl wider. "Know the story behind them?"

The silence on Haji's part seems to translate into a _no_. Or perhaps, more likely, a discourse toward _I don't want to know_. But Nathan seems in no mood to show him any mercy tonight.

Haloed in starlight like some perverse allegorical figure, a brainchild of delirium, the elder Chevalier leans forward.

"The story of Altair and Vega is part of a Chinese festival called Qi Xi—falling on the seventh day of the seventh month or something like that. It's when all the teenage girls carve melons and pray for good husbands. Anyway, on this night, the stars of Vega and Altair are brightest."

Haji does not shift his gaze from the sky.

"Legend goes, Altair was a humble cowherd, and Vega was a princess. The two fell in love and married, and spent their days happily together. The only problem was that they enjoyed being together so much, they neglected their duties. Altair stopped tending to his cows, and Vega no longer weaved at her loom. This pissed off the Emporer of Heaven, so he seperated them, tearing the sky open to form the Milky Way, a barrier to keep the little slackers apart."

Wind whistles across the cliff. Haji hears the surf thundering far below, almost an echo to the blood clamoring against his ears.

Nathan sits crosslegged beside him, pausing a moment for obvious dramatic effect, before launching into a further foray of illumination, or madness, or perhaps both.

"Deprived of each other's company, Vega sat at her loom all day long, pining for her husband. And Altair sat in the fields all the while, daydreaming about Vega. They were both so miserable that they couldn't function. Finally the Emporer of Heaven felt sorry for them. He agreed that they could see each other—once and only once—every year. And everafter, on that oh-so-blessed day, all the magpies of the world form a bridge across the Milky Way, so Altair and Vega can cross it and be together."

Haji does not repond.

Nathan leans forward, all sly smile and the glint of half-lidded eyes, imparting his tale with the quiet mockery of a paranormal trickster—Puck unleashed by the Powers that Be to induce chaos in the shape of well-meaning assistance.

"They say, at some point, Vega and Altair's stars will unite in the sky, right in the center of the Milky Way. And then they'll be together at last. So can you guess what the moral of the story is?"

"I will only see Saya once every year," Haji mutters. Part desire to end Nathan's tirade, part mechanical impulse. At that moment, it is all that really comes to mind.

Nathan lets out a heartfelt groan, pinching the skin on the bridge of his nose between his fingers before jabbing one poniard digit at Haji. " _No, junior—_ _Christ_ _._ The moral is that every single action has a consequence. What goes up, must come down. It's the law of Physics, God, and Chiropteran. The point is that Altair and Vega tried to block out their obligations, shut out real life—and in return, they were screwed bigtime."

"I fail to see how this concerns me."

"It may not concern you, _per se_ —but _Saya_ it most assuredly does."

This time, Haji turns to glance at Nathan. "What do you mean?"

Nathan's smile is long and self-satisfied, the curling elflocks and glittering eyes giving him the appearance of a vicious lifesized goblin.

"I mean, Haji, that just because Saya's gone now, doesn't mean she always will be. If there's one thing I've seen, it's that nothing in life goes as expected. Anyone who thinks he or she has it all figured out is full of shit. None of us can anticipate the future. Who knows, Saya may just realize that living her dream isn't as dreamy as she pictured. Besides, to use one particularly famous cliché, love may be blind, but marriage is a _real_ eye-opener."

The younger Chevalier stares at Nathan. "What?"

Nathan waves a hand, the gesture grandiose and negligent. "Nothing to stress your pretty little head over. But keep in mind, even if Saya's married Solomon, you're still her Chevalier by blood. You still have a sacred duty to serve her—and this includes not wasting into a walking-talking zombie. I don't think it would do either of you any good, if you sat on your ass all day long, wallowing in self-pity. That's not what Saya would want for you."

"What do you know what Saya wants for me?" Haji cuts in, before he can stop himself. His voice is flat, but the edges of his mouth hold a tension akin to bitterness. "She has her own life to live now. I have little or no bearing in it."

"You'd think that, wouldn't you? Just because she isn't here. But like you said, she has her own life, and hence, she has to find her own way. The same is true of _you_ , Haji."

"What?"

"You spent decades serving this woman. Your existence cycled around her, night and day. With her gone, I'm a little interested in what you're going to do now. Garden? Get a new hobby? There's a million possibilities for a man who'll live forever—but since this is _you_ , the margin's pretty skinny. If I were stupid, I'd say it's only a matter of time before you meet someone new and move on—but it's just as likely you'll spend all eternity with nothing but Ms. Palm and her Five Daughters for company."

Haji makes no reply.

"In any case, with Saya gone, you're gonna have to relearn what it means to say 'I' again. To live for _yourself_. Otherwise, things could get ugly in a hurry. This is a good chance to try. That's why I think this separation might be a good thing for _both_ of you. Helps to straighten out priorities and encourage self-discovery and all that crap."

Haji's eyes narrow to slits. "You make it sound as though she's on a brief vacation rather than married."

Nathan idly scratches the back of his head, gaze drifting skyward. "What is a honeymoon, if not a vacation? And what is marriage if not another phase in life. An important one, true, but not the only one. And really, as long as life goes on, things will keep on changing. For better and for worse. It's the Karmic cycle."

Haji doesn't respond; he is staring at Nathan, bemused and wary.

Abruptly, the elder Chevalier cracks a leering grin, gaze dropping dangerously close to areas not Haji's face. "Besides, _you're_ the one Saya gave her sword to. If anything, it means that she wants you to keep it handy for her."

"What?"

"Think about it. This sword's as much a part of Saya as her lungs or her arm. It's part of who she is—and of what you two are to each other. And instead of setting it alight with a keg of gasoline, she's left it in your care. If that isn't a coded message, I don't know _what_ it is."

Haji frowns, the distant surges of a premonition rising within him, teasing at his psyche without taking definitive shape. He glances back at the seaside, feeling the wind pick up, whipping his hair to a chaotic tangle, before turning to Nathan again.

But the space he beholds is empty.

Like surf sliding off the rocks, Nathan has vanished.

Haji is alone again, with nothing but the familiar weight of Saya's sword, held bundled within his coat, to serve as company.

His hands travel to the weapon on instinct, thumb rubbing idly back and forth across the hilt. A brief fantasy flits across his mind, of just taking the sword, of slicing through his own wrists, gashing red curlicues across his skin and bleeding to death out here at the cliff.

Nothing but the stars above and the sea below. No more pain, no more regret.

But as long as Saya exists, he knows it can never happen. As long as she lives and breathes, so too will he—not out of pleasure or comfort, but pure instinct. Forever her shadow, her silent doppelganger. Try as he might, he cannot begrudge her for leaving him, for choosing a man he so loathes. That decision is hers alone to make; she is free to choose her own destiny.

Not her fault the result consigns him to utter solitude and despair in the bargain.

The sword he holds now is an aching reminder, both of her absence, and of the enormity of his own loss.

When the first tear drips down his face, he blinks, startled. Raising a hand, he dabs away the warmth on his cheek. His fingers glisten wetly in the starlight.

He freezes, shocked by this sudden loss of control.

He has not cried for so long. He has made no complaint or protest throughout all the yawning decades, has kept silent through every single agony he has endured. But this moment seems to enlarge every loss and suffering, to redouble and burgeon the pain until he can no longer hold it back.

He hasn't even felt such despair since Vietnam. Felt as though the world has ceased to matter, to exist at all—as though the floor has been yanked from under his feet, and he is falling, falling, and can never hit the ground.

But abruptly, the realization crashes in, engulfing him whole. A tsunami of grief, previously held back by the rigid dam of self-restraint, surging loose with tenfold the force.

And for once in his life, Haji welcomes it. He needs this release— _any_ release—so badly. Until now, he has been too numbed to cry, to grasp the gravity of Saya's loss. Nothing has felt real to him—he is caught between mourning for a friend who is still alive, and dreading the departure of a lover whose absence will plunge his world into darkness.

His shoulders shake, silent stifled sobs tripping out, slowly at first, then harder and faster. Raising his face to the sky, he lets the tears stream down, streaking frozen cheeks in shining webtrails. Pulse beating in tandem with every choked gasp, with every vibrant memory of Saya that rages behind his eyes.

But it is comforting, in its own terrible way, because it reminds him that he is still alive.

And for now, while Saya lives, that will have to be enough to sustain him—through this night, and every night after.


	5. Safari

"…that young woman over there, that's her. That's his wife."

" _Her?_ That's madame Goldsmith?"

"Yes, that's right. Tragic, how all the good-looking men end up with a _ball-and-chain_ bogging them down _._ It's really such a universal impasse."

"Too true. And she is hardly what I would call a 'Woman of Splendor'."

"I suppose not. Although she is quite attractive...in this quaint, demure sort of way. Like a China doll."

"But doesn't she seem a bit too _young_ for him? She looks barely sixteen."

"I know. Isn't it strange? And would you look at that? She's ordered _twice_ as much to eat as her husband—how on earth does she keep her figure?"

"Hmph, must be the work of some fancy plastic surgeon. The richer you are, the better they come."

"Well, _I'd_ splurge on one too, if I could bag a man that rich. You know, my last doctor was just _dreadful._ Thanks to him, I lost _sensation_ on one of these—" A long vermilion nail stabs at a silicone-plumped bust-line; diamond ring sparkling under the chandeliers.

Her friend _tsk-tsks_ , daintily popping a spoonful of éclair between red lips. "I'd recommend the ones outside of France. They're much more discreet. And reasonably-priced. My sister had her rhinoplasty done from this genius in Norway. Poor thing used to have this garish bulbous nose, but I could barely _recognize_ her afterward, the difference was so drastic!"

A feline sneer. "Hmm. I wonder where Mrs. Goldsmith got _hers_ done from. Perhaps I could drop subtle inquiries."

"I suppose you could. And drop her husband my phone number while you're at it…"

Tittering laughter. Saya glares down at the salmon in caper sauce Solomon has ordered for her. On instinct, she inches closer to her husband, who blithely sips from his wineglass as though he can't hear a word.

The two women, comprised of cascades of blond hair and fashionably frivolous gowns as expensive as the perfume that radiates off them, are three tables away, but Saya can hear them clearly.

Enhanced hearing is a bane at times—particularly when you are no longer on the battlefield. What good is the ability to discern the softest breath, the farthest footfall, when it is used for nothing except picking up snide gossip?

Around Saya, waiters sail by, straight-backed, bearing laden trays of champagne and millefeuilles. The high-ceilinged banquet hall brims with silk-swishing, diamond-dripping ladies, with suit-clad, suavely-smiling men. Chandeliers blaze, illuminating the spread of starched tablecloths and silverware below. In the background, a string quartet plays a scintillating tune that blends with the laughter and tinkling cutlery.

Saya feels a hundred mercenary eyes piercing into her, bright as lasers. Everywhere, people are assessing her—subtly—yet with blatant curiosity. She feels almost like a sculpture on a plinth, a doll in a showcase.

The exquisite pink dress Solomon insisted on picking out for her is too tight. Her highheels pinch at the toes and she wants to kick them off.

Despite the vast hall, she feels suffocated. All these sly-faced self-inflated men and wafer-thin disdainfully-superior women make her hackles rise in mistrust. She almost misses her nights spent tailing Chiropterans by moonlight.

Misses the simple, brutal honesty of knowing who were her enemies, and who were her friends.

Beside her, Solomon speaks calmly with a few acquaintances at their table—older men who wreathe the air with hard-hitting French syllables and cigar smoke that turns her stomach.

They are discussing something she can't follow, but obviously isn't expected to— _if such and such country is suffering from a credit crunch, it is unwise to invest in the entertainment sector—that's one of the first areas the public cuts expenditure back on…_

They are what Solomon terms as 'business associates.' Indeed, he seems to prefer no other kind. Despite his amicable charm, in some ways, Saya is quick to notice that her husband is as partial to solitude as she.

These dinners with human colleagues—fleeting, but mandatory—are merely to maintain appearances.

She wonders how these men would react if they knew that the elegant young couple before them dine nightly on human blood, or that both of them are over a century old.

The men's wives sit bland and compliant beside them, attractive as shop mannequins and with equally little to say. Indeed, Saya notices very few businesswomen present. Despite their air of modernity, these men are clearly part of a cohesive Boy's Club.

It reminds her of the faraway balls at the Zoo, where droves of ladies would sit simpering over banal details like new dresses and trips to the countryside, while the gentlemen retired to the parlor amid brandy and tobacco, discussing business they assumed womenfolk were unable to cram their sparrow's brains with.

Saya had always detested those gatherings, always longed for there to be more laughter and fun. Her one consolation had been that Haji, who had always acted as her escort, never opted to leave her side if he could help it. Didn't matter if he was as bored as she in the process. Boredom divided was boredom lessened, as long as they were together.

But there is no Haji to keep her company here.

Under the table, Solomon's hand curls gently around hers. The memory of Haji, of the Zoo, dissolves into the warm absorption of his fingertips on her skin.

"Saya?"

She blinks. He's withdrawn from the conversation with the other men, leaving them to drone on about condos and currencies, and now grants her his full attention. Among the spiteful voices and empty smiles, his familiar face feels like the most consoling, most welcome entity in the room.

"What the matter, Saya? You've barely touched your food."

Saya bites her lip. "I-I'm not really very hungry."

"Not hungry? Why? Are you feeling sick?"

"No, it's not that. Just…" She shifts uncomfortably in her tight dress.

She can still see the two women from the corner of her eye, feel their gazes roving across Solomon's profile. A strange territorial feeling surges through her. She can't say what's wrong, except that those women have no right to be eyeballing her husband that way, not while she's seated right beside him.

 _If I wasn't with him tonight_ , _he'd probably have left home with one of them, wouldn't he?_

The idea of it makes her flush. If she ever assumed that jealousy was no longer part of her nature, this makes it painfully clear how wrong she was.

"Just what?" Solomon's hand tightens around hers.

"Well, I..." Saya falters, voice dropping. "How can you keep such a straight face when you can hear what everyone around us is saying?"

Solomon gives her a slow smile. Under the brilliant light, his face combines the crisp air of sophistication with the angelically-sculpted features of a boy. "Years of practice, _mon ange_."

"We've been here almost two hours now, but I can still feel everyone staring at us. How do you get used to it?"

"The staring? Honestly, I never got used to that." His voice lowers. He lifts his hand to trace the shape of her mouth with a fingertip. "And really, isn't that the reason why, at a certain school ball, I danced with a certain beautiful girl at all?"

She blushes, skin leaping in sparks at the caress. But she tries to be impartial about the truth. "You…didn't really think that when you first saw me. You just wanted the other girls to stop looking at you."

"And isn't it funny how my entire life changed because of that one fleeting impulse?"

"Mm."

Hadn't her own life tumbled upside down after an innocent impulse? Had she never released Diva from her tower, she might have circumvented decades' worth of death and suffering. Spared herself and her family so much loss.

But then, if Diva was never released into the world, then she'd certainly never have met Solomon. All this—the marriage, her pregnancy, her chance to travel the world, would never have come her way.

The concept of weighing her personal happiness against the grief of countless others fills her with guilt. The whole argument is so ambiguous, one of those endless insolvable Möbius strips that loops around and around without any distinctive answer.

At the stage, the quartet strikes up a new tune. Mozart's _Violin Concerto_. Threads of gleaming notes swirl about the room, supplanting all the intrusive chatter like sunlight.

Saya smiles wistfully, mood lifting. This composition was one of the first she'd schooled Haji in, back at the Zoo.

She can still remember those indolent evenings, with her young friend struggling to master the tune on her enormous cello, while she impatiently criticized and rapped out orders, occasionally smacking at his small pale hands for missing a vital note.

The first few times, he'd grit his teeth but said nothing. But as her physical punishments increased in frequency, so too had the boy's frustration.

She still recalls the evening where her torment took its ultimate toll, and the then-fifteen-year-old Haji lost his temper and flung the cello aside, exploding into a volley of the most lurid blasphemies she'd ever heard in her life. She remembers his expression in that moment—red-faced and tight-lipped and so righteously indignant, going all the way from _connasse_ to _va te faire foutre_ while still maintaining that rigid equanimity as though reciting a religious catechism.

Saya had been so shocked that she had actually burst out laughing. After realizing the absurdity of the whole scenario, Haji had simmered down and joined in. They had made a deal that evening; she promised not to strike him during cello lessons, if he would teach her a few more colorful phrasings to use in everyday life.

At least that's what the bargain had been—until Joel had overheard her using said phrasings during one of her fencing lessons.

Saya was rebuked for such unladylike vocabulary, and Haji was thrashed for teaching her.

Poor Haji. He always seemed to bear the harder brunt of every repercussion—even if she was the one who initiated it.

_Haji…_

"What's the matter, Saya?" Solomon asks. "You're smiling all of a sudden. Which is, itself, a wonderful improvement, but at least tell me why."

"Hm?" Saya shakes off the memory. "Oh nothing. I was just… enjoying the music."

"Ah. Mozart's _Concerto No.1_? I've always enjoyed this number. The Presto movement at the end is my favorite."

"Really?" She smiles, pleased at the shared recognition. Outside of their love of traveling, classical music is one of the predominant things she and Solomon have in common.

But even within that mutual interest, she has been startled to note subtle discrepancies. They admire exactly the same composers, but their favorite pieces are different. They both favor exactly the same artists, but have entirely different pet paintings. They have exactly the same choice in books and poems, but when the time comes for analysis, they have very different opinions on every character and theme.

Saya concludes that it is the result of their being raised in different eras. Solomon always counters that it is because she's spent so long walled in by blood and death that it has narrowed her viewpoints.

"When did you first hear this piece?" she asks. "It was pretty much before your heyday."

He smiles, amused but cautionary. "That's a story I'd rather not share with you."

"No, tell me. I'd like to hear it."

He hesitates, then presses her hand between his. "I used to listen to the piece after the war, while I was still studying medicine. There was this rickety Victrola in the vestibule of the clinic I initially worked. Always, there would be all these records piled about—the head doctor's late wife had been a musical enthusiast. Of course, we never played her records for any uplifting purposes."

"What do you mean?"

"During the time, there had been a major breakout of the Spanish Flu. Really a rather funny name for it, because there was nothing Spanish about that pandemic at all. It came to us straight from America. The country was...ill-prepared to combat it."

"So why did you play Mozart during that time?"

His eyes shift, focusing for a moment beyond her, beyond the room itself.

"You have to understand. In those days, France was only just recovering from the Great War. Supplies, medical and otherwise, were somewhat...scarce. We had to improvise with what we had. So when the flu strain first hit, there often wasn't enough sterile apparatus. The patients who were brought in, choking on bloody saliva, literally rupturing their lungs from such violent coughing... couldn't always be administered enough anesthesia. We played the Victrola whenever they would be screaming too loudly, and it was impossible to concentrate on anything else."

Saya grimaces, appalled. "God, Solomon."

"I told you it was a story I would rather not share with you."

"I'm surprised you can still stand to _listen_ to this, after all that."

"Oh no. It's not as terrible as you think." His voice drops another level, perceptible to her ears alone. "I became a Chevalier, just a few months after—which I suppose is somewhat fortunate. Otherwise I'm certain I would have contracted that bedeviled flu myself, as at least half my fellow physicians did. And after I was free of my old life forever... well, I suppose you could say time heals all wounds. Everything in my past life seemed to dissolve shortly after. And the things I saw and felt then, along with it."

She frowns. "But...didn't that make you feel guilty?"

"For what?"

"For, well, forgetting so fast?"

He chuckles. "Some things, Saya, it is better _to_ forget. The lesser baggage you store in your soul, the lighter it will feel. And the freer you will be." He tilts his head. "So for starters, why not tell me why this music makes _you_ smile so fondly?"

"Hm? Oh, it's nothing..." The truth rolls out before she can stop herself. "This is actually one of the first pieces I taught Haji to play on the cello."

Solomon's eyes narrow; she feels him stiffen slightly. The thin set of his mouth communicates his displeasure.

Saya inwardly curses her slip. She knows how much he hates being reminded of her years with Haji, of the long childhood they spent together at the Zoo, the war they fought side-by-side. It makes him feel as if he is missing out on something, as if there is some part of herself that she still keeps out of his reach.

A part that belongs to her first Chevalier alone.

"You think about Haji too much," Solomon says, and his voice is cool. "Don't you think its time you stopped pining over him?"

Saya frowns. "I'm not pining over him. But he was my friend for years. It's not something you just forget about."

"I'm not suggesting you forget about him, Saya. I'm merely suggesting that you move beyond your past now. Focus on your future. How can you be happy if you keep falling back on all those unnecessary memories?"

"They're not unnecessary—they're my _memories_. Besides, not all of my time with Haji was miserable."

"I never said it was. Please stop twisting my words. I only mean that Haji is not the centerfold of your life anymore. You have much more important things to pay attention to than musing over him."

She feels a stab of annoyance. "I can muse over him if I want to, Solomon. He's still my Chevalier by blood—and at some point, I am going to run into him again. We both are. I can't just blot him out of my life."

"Again, you're deliberately twisting my words." Solomon's tone is one of patient exasperation. "I neither said I want you to forget Haji, nor did I imply that we will not be seeing him some day. It just bothers me when you withdraw into yourself this way. I feel concerned about your mental health."

"My mental health?"

"Exactly. You start behaving strangely everytime this happens."

"You're making it sound like I'm crazy!"

The sentence comes out sharper than expected. Curious glances from the other diners flit to their corner. There is general laughter. Saya ducks her head, red-faced, but Solomon merely glances back at the others, unperturbed.

"Who on earth is this Haji?" one of the sleek-haired men at the table drawls.

Solomon smiles serenely. "No one important."

"Aren't having a lover's spat with the missus about him, are you, Solomon?"

"Of course not. But excuse us a moment, won't you? We're going to dance a little bit."

Saya feels the subtle pressure of his fingertips on her waist. Sullen, but eager to distance herself from the table, she allows him to tug her to the glossy marble dancefloor.

The band strikes up something slower just then, a leisurely waltz tune. Solomon draws her close, one palm spread across her waist, and steers her into motion, directing her movements with his own. Saya lets him sweep her in a graceful rise and fall amid the other couples, feet moving in tandem with his, but avoids looking at him.

When they have reached one end of the floor and spun the other way, Solomon says, "Charming as you are when you are wound up, Saya, I would request you not to lose your temper so easily in front of company. It is not becoming."

She glares at the spot over his shoulder. "You started it, not me."

"Perhaps, but there was no need to throw such a fit over it."

She does not answer.

Solomon pauses, and his tone softens. "I seem to have upset you."

Silence.

"Angel, please look at me? You know I didn't mean to make you angry."

She hesitates, then forces herself to meet his gaze. Against her will, she softens at the pensive gleam in his eyes.

He seems so abject, none of the expected languid poise in sight.

An expression he reveals to no-one but her, because hers is the only instance where he feels any remorse at all.

In the past, he's proven capable of betraying his own Queen; of butchering his own comrades without batting an eyelid. Yet, as ever, only she seems to evoke any genuine contrition in him. Perhaps because she's the one thing in this life that he's ever truly desired at all, the only thing he's ever committed himself so completely to.

He often tells her he'll cease to exist without her. And Saya, who understands what it means to devote her entire life to a single cause, can only feel a painful empathy in return.

So difficult to forget that without his past interventions, she might not be alive today.

She makes no resistance as he pulls her closer. The frilly chiffon of her dress rustles against the fabric of his suit as she finds herself hugged up against him. Almost unthinkingly, her fingers curl along his nape, resting on the warm sliver of skin above his collar, where blond hair tapers to feathery curls.

Holding him this way, feeling the heat of his palms against the thin layers of her dress, inhaling the salubrious aroma of his cologne, it is so easy to forget any discord. So easy to overlook any disparity at all.

Right now, there's only the same enchantment of their first dance in the Lycee, the same bliss as when he makes love to her.

All doubt melting into sheer physical absorption.

"Saya, please don't be annoyed with me. Haji is your Chevalier, and of course I understand the history you both share. But I only worry that you might strain yourself with all these reminders of your past. It has nothing to do with blotting him from your life."

"But I'm not straining myself—"

"Saya, I see how you get whenever you roll into yourself. I see what it does to you. You feel guilty, and you shut yourself away from everything around you. It makes me so anxious—honestly, I'm always anxious about you, because I love you so much, and I want to make you happy. But I can't do that if you won't even give yourself a chance to try, let alone me."

"I—"

He kisses her forehead. "Please, let's not argue about this anymore. I know you're bored in this place. I feel the same way. We aren't like these people. Not in temperament, nor in species. All through dinner, all I kept thinking of was when I could be alone with you again."

"So why did you want me to come here with you?"

"Why?" He offers a rueful smile. "Partly to maintain appearances. Partly because I hoped the ordeal would be more bearable if I had you at my side. I know I don't act it, but I despise these gatherings. All those people...always staring and murmuring and pressing too close. I always want to take a bath afterward. At least this time, just knowing you were there with me…it made it enough."

Saya reluctantly finds herself smiling in return. "So what do you do when you're at these events by yourself?"

"Play safari."

"Safari?"

"It's something I invented to kill time as a boy. Whenever I would be at a tedious party, I pretended I was stranded with some savage tribe, recording their customs and behavior. For example—" He gently pilots her to the direction of an overweight red-faced man coughing over his champagne, surrounded on all sides by solicitous waiters.

Solomon's mouth hovers across her ear, assuming the mock-somber tones of a narrator recounting far-off countries and exotic cultures. "Log one: _immensity in stature is a clear_ _indication of material wealth among these creatures. Note the greater amount of staff hovering at the tables of those with wider body mass."_

Saya wants to scold him for the unkind remark. But a giggle bubbles from her throat.

Unkind though he is, he's right.

Solomon smiles, pleased to rouse her from her funk. He nudges her toward two well-dressed society matrons, greeting each other with the fashionable almost-kiss on each cheek. "Log two: _observe how members of this tribe disdain all physical contact with social equals._ " A subtle gesture to the fluffy white poodle one of the ladies coos over like a toddler. " _However, rabid dogs and flea-infested felines prove exception to the rule_."

"Solomon!" Saya presses her face to his shoulder, stifling rising peals of laughter.

"Log three,"—a scantily-clad girl leaning over the bar, flaunting an insipid smile and a voluptuous physique to an elegant older man—" _Maturity and intelligence are inversely proportionate to the amount of clothing that covers the body's essentials. Low necklines also seem to be an indication of deficient mental content."_

Saya has to bite her lip to stop the gnawing laughter; her shoulders shake with the effort to keep quiet. Solomon chuckles too, low and light, and presses his cheek to the top of her head. "There now. This is better. You're so beautiful when you laugh, Saya. When you do, I can imagine everything's right with the world, that I have everything I could possibly want right here."

Giggles subsiding, Saya draws in air, wiping at her eyes. "Do you always do this when you meet your friends?"

"Friends? I really wouldn't call them that. They have their uses, but 'friend' is such an intimate word. I've never truly believed that Chiropterans and humans can _be_ actual friends."

This remark perturbs her, though she can't explain why. Her smile fades. "Well, I think they can…if they both try to make an effort. If they both try to understand each other."

"Ah. Cats and rabbits can live under the same roof and not cause as much as a stir, you mean?"

"Well—yes."

He twirls her slowly around the floor, her hair fanning in a dark vortex through the air, before he draws her back against him. His smile is faintly amused. "I suppose it could happen—if both cat and rabbit were raised that way. If they were taught from birth to suppress their true nature. But it wouldn't last very long in the real world. Out there, when the time comes, the cat will eventually grow hungry, and kill the rabbit to survive."

Saya frowns. "What are you implying? That any relationship we have with humans won't last in real life."

"Harmony between both species is just a matter of perspective. Ultimately, we cannot fight what we are—or what humans are to us."

"You make it sound like they have no bearing in our life except as food supplies, Solomon. But we live alongside them."

"Out of necessity, Saya. Not preference. We need humans to survive, not thrive. Keeping within their rules and customs...it's merely convenient. Not necessary."

"My family are humans too, Solomon. Kai is human. So were Riku and my father. Do you see them the same way?"

He tilts his head, eyes narrowed. "Now why would you ask me that? You know perfectly well that I don't think that way about your family. Honestly Saya, it's like sometimes you deliberately go out of your way to pick fights with me."

Saya scowls. "You're the one who brought up the topic, not me."

"And we'll speak no more of it. It's a rhetorical dilemma neither of us would agree on. In the meantime, let's return to our table. The sooner dessert's over with, the sooner we can leave."

Lips pursed, she nods, but does not answer. The dancing comes to a halt with the last strains of the song. She and Solomon glide to a stop near a corner of the room. She still has one hand draped along his neck, the other clasped in his. But before she can draw away, he tightens his grip.

When their eyes meet, his gaze dulls. "I've upset you again."

"It's not you. It's just that…"

"Perhaps we should just forget about dessert and call it a night. You're obviously not in the best of spirits tonight."

Eyes shaded, she lifts her shoulders slightly. "All right."

She moves to return to the able. But he gently lifts her chin, giving her a long thoughtful look. "…Or, if you're not too tired, I was hoping to make a detour along the way."

"A detour?"

"Right. I thought perhaps we could head out to the beach."

This perks up her flagging spirits. "The beach?"

"Yes. There's this shoreline on the city's outskirts that I've been meaning to show you—completely deserted, with no illumination except for the city lights in the water. The area is cut off from the public too, so…" a teasing smile blooms, "…you're more than free to take a moonlight swim without getting your clothes wet."

Her skin flushes at the intensity of his gaze. But at the same moment, she can practically feel the cool splash of seawater across her body, the icy whistle of wind in her ears. Fresh air, open sky—how blissful it sounds compared to the oppressive murk of this ballroom.

Instantly, she yearns to be unfettered.

"How…how soon can we get there?"

Solomon glances briefly toward their table, then back at her. "We can go right this moment, if that's what you wish."

"But—what about the others?"

"Never mind them. I hardly think I need their permission to run away with my wife." He smiles, tugging her to one of the wide French windows leading to the terrace.

Saya hesitates, "W-wait a minute! I left my bag at the table—"

"No worries. I'll buy you a new one." His arm around her waist then, followed by an eyeblink fast-forward too quick for the human eye to catch. "Hold on tight, Saya."

One moment later, they swoop past the swinging chestnut doors and away from the drone of the ballroom, leaping unnoticed over the terrace's railing to burst giddy and free into the night.

The full moon is a brilliant spotlight that silhouettes their bodies in black and silver. Haloed against the glow, they aim for the closest rooftop in an utter defiance to gravity, swift and irreversible as human projectiles.

Off-balance, exhilarated, Saya clutches tightly at Solomon, breathing deep on the night air. Their feet barely connect with one rooftop before they catapult onto the next. The city lights below grow brighter and fainter with each propulsive rise and fall. She hears laughter coming from somewhere far away, trailing behind her like a red ribbon.

It takes her a moment to realize _she_ is laughing, each peal issuing in time with the airborne arcs she and Solomon cut through empty sky.

Away from the stifling hall, the unfamiliar people, she feels so deliriously liberated, so...weightless. No traffic or eyes to obstruct them, no roads or signs to impede their trajectory. Nothing but a vast stretch of concrete leading toward the moonlit sea at the horizon.

She did this so often during the war, with Haji. Bounded swiftly across a river of rooftops like stepping-stones, heading toward each new destination, each ravening Chiropteran. But why did she never realize how enrapturing the sensation is? Why did she never do this with her Chevalier, after the war ended?

Most likely, she was just afraid of the reminders it brought back.

Of duty. Of death and battle.

Now, peering hungrily at the moon, Saya wonders if Haji's leaping across rooftops too on this night. Is he also heading to a beach, wherever he might be? Is he playing his cello, trying not to dwell on how she abandoned him?

Perhaps he's finally resigned himself to her departure—perhaps he's even found someone else who might be able to take his pain away.

Or perhaps, just as likely, he's still all alone, and still thinking of her.

Just as she's surprised and a little bit guilty to find herself still thinking of him too.


	6. Tears

The house is empty save the two of them. The pale glow of afternoon suffuses the air, a choking, over-warm presence. Sunlight floods the uncurtained window, so intense it seems to arc across the floor in solid shafts.

By its radiance, the tears filling Saya's eyes are beyond her control.

She can't hold them back, can't conceal the influx of emotion swelling through her.

Face averted, she bites her lip. She doesn't want to admit how badly it hurts her—doesn't want _him_ to see how difficult this is, the agony equivalent to wrenching her own heart out of her chest.

Because a part of her knows that despite everything, this sensation is only a fraction, a _speck_ , compared to what Haji is experiencing.

She can see it happening so clearly in his eyes.

They were both raised in a different era, a time where emotion was masked, if not squelched—where displays of passion were to be kept at a staunch minimal, and if possible, completely avoided. It was pounded so indelibly into their brains that it metamorphosed to become a part of who they were.

_Appearances must always be kept. It is a matter of dignity, a matter of honor._

Which is why she finds herself despising that aspect to their natures now.

Anything, even screaming, even curses and blows from him, would be easier to bear than the _look_ he is giving her.

As though he's shattering from within. As though his understanding of love, of life, had been completely scorched to ash.

Saya's mouth feels dry and thick, like a mouthful of dust. She has to force the words out. "I know…I know how much you wanted this. I know how much it meant to you. But…I'm sorry, Haji. I just can't go through with it. There's just too much—too much I'd have to face up to. Too much regret. And I can't do that. It wouldn't be fair to you, and it wouldn't be fair to me. It would be no way to start a family."

Haji closes his eyes. He says nothing, but his hands are clenched into loose fists at his sides. Stymied desperation crackles off him in waves—for a moment, he looks like he might physically _scream. S_ he can see the fine tendons on his neck flaring, the muscles working in his throat.

But when he speaks, his lips move infinitesimally.

"I… I understand, Saya."

Her own throat clamps shut. She's appalled to silence by the choked resignation in his voice. Of all the possible reactions she pictured from him, this is by far the last.

She tries to keep her voice steady. Instead, the words are a jittery rasp.

"I know…that I'm being so terrible to you. So selfish. It seems to be all I do. You give up everything for me, you always guide and support me—and in return, all I do is hurt you. Again and again and again. I'm so sorry, Haji. But that's why I feel like this— _us_ —it wouldn't be able to work. It would be unfair to us both. Too much has happened to you because of me…so much, I can't even breathe when I think about it. It's like I'm choking to death. I can't keep leaning on you for comfort. I have to find my own way. I want to have a second chance."

Haji gives no visible reaction. He turns, glancing at the window beyond, a white square outlined in pale sunshine. Saya studies his profile, etched in the ambient glow. Hair dark streaks on a white face, tips of eyelashes colorless against the sunstruck beams. Dustmotes float weightless and glittery through the air around him.

She sees a vein rise on the side of his neck, like a premonition. But when he speaks, his voice is quiet.

"You owe me no apology, Saya. You deserve a second chance. You deserve to be happy. If…you truly feel _he_ can make you happy, then I cannot stand in your way. It is not my place."

Saya bites her lip. A rush of hot irrational anger fills her, consuming her with nearly the same violence as the grief.

"How can you—how can you be so calm about it?" she blurts. "How can you stand there and act so—self-effacing! I know how angry you must be with me! I can feel it! Why can't you just come out and say it! It would make everything so much easier!"

Haji's eyes are pale voids in the sunlight. "There is nothing easy about any of this."

"Do you really think taking the high road is going to change anything? That it will make my guilt go away? I _am_ guilty—I'm guilty of always causing you pain, I'm guilty of lying to you, always abandoning you and hurting you! Don't you think I know that? This hurts so much—you have no idea how much—but I can't go through with being with you, Haji. I'm sorry, but I just can't. The past is always going to be there, and I can't stand it anymore! I need some rest. I need a fresh start. Solomon…can give me that."

If tears didn't so blur her eyes, she might've seen the way his expression curdles when she says _Solomon_. The way his jaw tightens with every word she speaks, mouth tensing with every droplet that streams down her face.

But she can't. And Haji turns his face away, refusing to let her see.

"You are obligated to live your own life, Saya. It would be wrong of me to argue with you, to keep you here against your will. If you have made up your mind to be with him, go…go do what you think is best."

"W-what?"

"Saya… I love you, and I do not wish to be separated from you. But more than that, I want you to be happy. You have earned that, after everything you've suffered."

Saya grits her teeth, overcome by a wave of crying that abruptly crumples her to the floor. She doesn't understand why, but in the face of this acceptance, her self-hatred boils tenfold harsher.

She truly is despicable, for saying all this, for treating Haji this way. So much the better, that they'll never be together—he deserves someone purer of mind and soul than her. There can be only desolation if she stays with him—as much for Haji as for herself.

But that does not make their parting any less unbearable.

The sobs wrenching from her lips seem to be coming from somewhere far off. It's only when she sees wet drops splash her hands does she realize just how badly she's trembling.

How odd, that she should be the one to shed such vales of tears—when it's Haji whom she's rending wide open.

And suddenly she feels his arms around her. Soundless as a shadow, and just as innate, he is at her side, helping her up. She wants to tell him that he shouldn't touch her—her very presence has to be so revolting to him.

She half-wishes he would throttle her instead, grab her and smash her into the wall. It would make this so much simpler.

Instead his lips press to her brow, to her wet eyelashes, kissing the tears away. There's such a finality in the gesture, yet such an unbounded tenderness. The longer he holds her, the more she fears her control might snap altogether—she's two heartbeats away from erupting into the very epitome of Hysterical Woman.

"Please…" she sobs, with a gingerly attempt to wrest herself away. "Please don't do that."

He stops immediately, although his hands remain on her shoulders, steadying her. Even now, while she's virtually tearing him apart, slicing him full of holes, _he_ is the one who continues to support her.

As though, for him, there is no other path or purpose to his life.

Which is precisely why she must let him go. If she stays with him, she'll only be using him, hurting him. And she doesn't think she can bear it. She owes him far too much as it is—his presence brims her with an endless rack of unpayable debts, enormous sacrifices she will forever be unable to recompense.

Were she brighter or more attuned to Haji's feelings, she might've realized that the greatest payment of favor would be to offer herself. To _stay_ with him.

But she hadn't understood that. Not until it was too late.

"I'm sorry," she breathes. "I love you, but I just can't do this. I can't imagine how much this hurts you—I know I'm being so selfish. But please, Haji. Please let me have this chance to live. Without blood or suffering. If I stay with you, I know I'll just end up hurting you—and I don't think I can take that anymore. We both need to find peace. We both need to be free."

"Saya…"

"Please. Please say it's all right. Please say…you'll let me go."

Haji's fingers dig convulsively into her shoulders, then abruptly slacken. He draws in a long shuddering breath. Stepping back, he drops both his hands and his gaze from her.

"Saya, you… do not need my permission to live your life. You have always been free to do as you please. I have no right to stop you."

It doesn't sound like his voice. There's too much weight, too much throttled tension running through it, like water pressing against a dam.

Trembling, she whispers, "Haji, I'm so sorry. I know I'm being so terrible to you—"

He cuts her off with a sharply-upraised hand. His eyes are squeezed shut, as if he can't trust himself to meet her gaze. "This is not about me, Saya. My life should have no bearing on your choices. You are entitled to your own existence. You must make your own decisions. If this…is one of them, so be it."

Saya swallows dryly. Tears scald her cheeks, blurring her eyes. "Haji, I'm so so sorry…"

"You owe me no apology, Saya. You may live however you please."

He says this softly, but with an implacable heaviness, still refusing to look at her. It would've been better, Saya thinks, if he had howled and banged at the walls and torn at his hair, if he grabbed her and shook her until her all bones jostled loose, screaming every obscenity he could dredge up.

It would've been easier if he responded to her refusal with violence. It might have justified her own departure, even if in a wholly perverse way.

But a tiny part of her knows that if he _does_ brutalize her, she will do nothing to stop him.

Except, when Haji's eyes open to meet hers, they are devoid of violence or pleading. Devoid of any emotion at all. He seems to be incomparably far off, as if she is part of a reality he can no longer bring himself to inhabit.

For the first time in Saya's memory, the weight of all the decades he has spent alive, all the agonies he has endured, seems to show in his face.

There is an infinite pain there, an endless hopeless exhaustion.

Mechanically, he digs his hand into his coat pocket, drawing something out. When he opens his palm, Saya sees that it is a necklace. The silver links of the chain glitter, dangling from his fingers like melted threads of moonlight.

A green stone flecked in red hangs suspended in the center.

Saya stares. "What…what is this?"

"It's a bloodstone. When I was a child, they used to be exchanged among our family, for anyone who was starting a new journey. They were once a talisman for warriors, to ensure victory and overcome troubles."

"A bloodstone?"

Haji gently takes her hand, dropping the necklace into it, a cool liquid spill. "They are said to ward off fears, protect against enemies. You…will be starting a new life now, Saya. This should belong with you."

Dazed, she stares at him, then at the necklace in her palm. A single droplet splashes the stone's green-red surface. It makes her aware of the tears welling in her eyes, of the painful spasms tightening her throat.

"Why—are you giving me this?" she rasps.

Haji averts his gaze. "It was supposed to be a present. For after we were married. Now, I suppose you could call it a wedding gift."

_But in an entirely different light…_

Saya hears the sentence clearly in the ensuing silence, harsh and distinct as a slap. She winces and jerks back, both her fists and her eyes squeezing shut. Her whole body aches, a bolus of pulsating pain. The room seems to be closing in on her, all color and oxygen draining out.

 _I'm sorry, Haji,_ she thinks, but can no longer bear to say it out loud. _I'm so so sorry._

A moment later, she feels his hands on her rattling shoulders. Steadying her, willing the suffocation to leave her body. He gathers her against him, and she allows herself to cleave to the familiar expanse of his chest, of lean solid arms on either side of her. She can almost hear the shared thrum of their pulse, beating like a secret code.

She's still crying, choked sobs rising like hiccoughs, tears burning trails—but the terrible asphyxia wanes, giving way to ragged gasps.

Leaning close, Haji kisses her forehead, cool and formal and final. His hair is a satiny rasp against her wet face.

"I will always love you, Saya," he says. "Even if... I can no longer be allowed to live by your side. I do not know how I will survive this night—but for your sake, I will do my best. You have made your choice, and I…I can only hope for your happiness in turn. It is all I can be allowed to do."

"Haji…" Saya's throat is tight, as if a garrote is coiling around it.

"But if I am not present to see you off after the wedding, when you are…leaving with him, please do not begrudge me. That is one thing even I cannot do."

She bites her lip hard, feeling her pulse beating against her teeth. "I—I understand."

His arms tighten around her. He presses his face into her hair, holds her to him with a forcible caution, as though embracing her for the first time.

Or the last.

Saya stands perfectly still against him. Tears continue to drip across her face, soaking his shirt and throat. Somewhere outside, she hears a murky car alarm, a screech of tires and dopplering sirens, but the sounds dissipate upon floating into the room, as if the sheer silence of the house chokes them to death.

After a moment, Haji swallows audibly, drawing back. His lips graze across her temple, voice barely above a whisper.

"Goodbye, Saya."

She opens her mouth—whether it is to apologize or sob, she is unsure—but suddenly her face is framed between cool white hands, and a pair of cool lips find themselves on hers. She responds without thought or remorse, dimly aware that there's a brazen disloyalty to this gesture—she will soon be marrying Solomon, and neither she nor Haji have any right to indulge this way—not now, or ever again.

But all she can taste at that moment are salt tears. All she can allow herself to feel is the slipping sensation of his mouth, so well-known and sustaining, gulping relentlessly, insistently at hers, infusing her with the bittersweet wrench of loss, the inevitability of goodbye.

She feels a sob vibrate and die in her throat. Haji shudders involuntarily as he tears his mouth away.

Through her hazy vision, she sees the wet tracks of her tears on his face, tangles of dark hair falling over his eyes.

Before she can speak, he jerks back with an abruptness that is almost electric. She has barely enough time to register a white hand snatching at the cello-case at the corner, before a blue-black blur arcs past the room, and the main door crashes shut. A tremor races across the wall in its wake, vases swaying and pictures rattling on their frames.

A framed photo on the bureau tumbles and shatters against the ground, splintering glass like a choir of bells.

And Saya is left standing there, with tears on her cheeks and a necklace clenched in her fist, the taste of Haji's mouth still vibrant on her own.

_Goodbye_


	7. Awash

She sees a world awash in red.

Blood shimmering everywhere, an endless ocean. It surrounds her in infinite quantities. Enough to bathe in. Enough to drown. She wades into the blood, swimming through it. Warm copper submerges her, running across her skin, painting it a gleaming red.

Immensely hot. Lusciously powerful. Setting every nerve alight.

Saya spreads her arms wide, floating through the red river. Her hair billows in a dark cloud. Every movement is dreamlike, a ballerina whirling underwater. She feels her fangs descending. Her whole body is suffused with a primordial hunger.

Her lips part, blood flooding her throat. Tangy. Zesty. Her fingers arrow through the murk, blind and entranced. She feels them tangle in something soft. Wispy tendrils mesh around her fingers, slipping through them like cornsilk.

What could they be? Vines? Threads?

Bemused, she tugs the strands closer. Around her, the temperature rises. The blood warms, beginning to boil against her flesh. She feels the heat saturate her limbs, slackening each muscle like molasses melting in hot water. There's a pressure building around her, an invisible current pressing on her body. Carrying her to the surface of the ocean.

She lets the current take her, unresisting. Her mouth opens, eager to taste sweet cool oxygen as she crests the red surface—

Her lips meet Solomon's, gulping in air from her dream that turns to warm delicious flesh against her mouth. She gasps, still tangled in the stupor of sleep. Solomon takes this as leeway and glides his tongue deeper into her mouth, rocking his lips against hers until he has full possession of the kiss. A half-stifled mewl escapes Saya. Her fingers are tangled in his hair, clutching the silky texture that so intrigued her in her dream.

Pre-dawn light suffuses the room, ghostly blue filming the edges of the furniture, striking off the calfskin walls and lacquered paneling. Metallic sapphire needles dance across Solomon's hair, striking two bright glints in his eyes. Tousle-haired and entangled in white sheets, he puts Saya in mind of a gravesite cherub, delicately honed and filled with enigmatic meaning.

His lips detach languorously from hers. His smile is angelic. But the red glow of his eyes gives it a demonic edge.

"I tried not to wake you up. But I'm afraid I don't have the pretext of sleep to distract me."

Saya smiles hazily.

Not the first night he's given her that excuse. And certainly not just once.

"I was… having a dream," she breathes. Everything feels so surreal. The warm weight of his body against hers, the salty tang of their prior sweat and lovemaking, are inseparable from the ocean she saw earlier.

"A dream?" Solomon asks.

"Mm."

"Must have been an interesting dream, to make you smile so."

She hears the approval in his tone, the relief. Over ten months, he's taken to sharing the same bed as her. And almost every night, he's accustomed to her jerking awake from nightmares, white-faced and shaking. In sleep, he sees her snatching at the covers, grasping at invisible sword hilts, fighting invisible foes.

Most nights when the terror is so total that she awakens hysterically screaming the names of her dead, he holds her close, whispering lulling words of comfort. She allows herself to be soothed by his heat, by the sound of his voice and heartbeat. Doesn't want to remember that he, too, once sided with the enemies that torment her sleep even now.

Other nights, when she _can't_ forget this, he offers her a very _different_ physical solace.

Recalling her nightmares makes her shudder. Solomon is quick to catch the tension. Gently, he tips up her chin. "Are you feeling all right, Saya?"

"Yes, I'm…I'm fine."

"No bad dreams, _mon ange_?"

Saya shakes her head. The last word is a melodic hum against her ear. He carries a trace of northern accent when he lapses to French—from Grenoble perhaps. Smoother and slower than her own Bordeaux lilt, flowing down her spine like a bead of blood. It suits the tenor of his voice, which is born for requiems and elegies, with an uncanny talent to both chill and soothe.

"It was just a dream," she says. "A strange dream."

"Strange?"

"Hm. There was…blood everywhere."

"It's not uncommon for a woman in your condition to dream of blood. Or perhaps you're simply hungry?"

"I…" Speech trails to frissons as his lips meet hers again, enmeshing and detaching in slow searing sips.

Logic embezzled, Saya gives in to the luxuriant fervor of the kiss, responding. She feels one warm hand push its way under the cover, taking a maddeningly unhurried tour. Her breathing hitches in wake of his fingertips, skin infused with shivers and gooseflesh. Solomon smiles as she trembles against him.

"Cold?" he teases.

She can't answer. He inspires such a contradiction of terms. Such a paradox. Heat and chills. Murky sleep and livid awareness. Enemy. Lover. Ambiguities that should baffle her, make her question her own sanity and doubt his. Ask herself how they came to be at this point, what changed between them and what that change says about both of them.

Except mental discord, Saya has learnt, is so insignificant in the face of intoxicating sensation.

Something smooth and slick circles at her ear. She gasps as Solomon tongues the curve of her jawline, her throat. His voice seems to seep through her, warm and heavy as honey. "You want to go back to sleep, Saya?"

She shakes her head, smiling faintly.

"Are you sure? Because if you're still tired, I can—"

"Solomon, you talk too much." She tightens her grip on the glittering curls between her fingers.

He chuckles. "My apologies. I'll be happy to put my mouth to better uses."

Words harmonizing deed, the kiss renewing, intensifying without quite accelerating. It's so electric and familiar. The duet of words, the mesmeric amalgam of sensation. The anticipation nearly as crucial as the physical union itself—a delicious _dos-a-dos_ across the venue of gauzy sheets and upended pillows.

With their every coming-together, Saya is caught in a sensory déjà vu of their Lycee waltz. In each instance, Solomon initiates, guides her—not as obligation or demand, but a matter of natural course. And she allows herself to be steered, a pliancy stemming less from inexperience as from the startling need to let go for once, relinquish control.

She is far from submissive by nature. But something about Solomon fills her with an implicit reprieve. With him, she can shut down her mind. Merely relish and respond.

But it also frightens her—because the few times she _has_ capitulated so utterly, chaos has erupted.

She breathes in air from his mouth, between each indolent invasive sweep of tongue and teeth. Kisses bestowed without escalation or pause. Usurping oxygen, ravaging self-control. His hands seem to lull and hypnotize. Teasing strokes and squeezes; lusty pulls and pinches. Evoking shudders and mewls across every route they take, his caresses moving from her breasts to her hips to her shyly spreading thighs to the liquid heat between them—not as if she is a preciously delicate instrument he is playing, as it was with Haji, but as if she is an exquisite morsel to be savored bite by bite, until raw appetite replaces epicurean refinement, and she is devoured whole.

One hand gently snares her wrist, directing where he wants her own touch and how, hissing delicious encouragement that dizzies her as much as any physical sensation. Leaving her drugged on the power she seems to wield over him, on how he is always so repeatedly, unashamedly, insatiably responsive to her touch.

Strange, how at first, it was Haji who introduced her to the game of physical discourse. But it is Solomon who hones her aptitude to flawlessness.

All the things he's taught her, from the scandalously sultry to the downright shocking, often stun her, leading as always to reminders of his past, at Diva's side. To all the privileges and opportunities he had then—decades' worth of playtime to perfect decadence and debauchery—while she existed in stringent self-denial.

Often, Saya can't help but wonder, obsessively and guiltily, if Solomon ever remembers Diva when he's with her. If the way she clings to him, the way she tosses her head when his fangs graze the line of her jaw, the way she sinks her nails frantic and feral against his skin, ever put him in mind of her twin sister. He's never given her any such indication. Yet, each time she kisses him, each time she laces her fingers through his, she finds herself thinking, _Did Diva do this? Did Diva, did Diva?_

But thinking of Diva _with_ Solomon is certainly no less painful than thinking of Diva at all.

Solomon has draped himself in a pale hard curve over her. Coaxing her knees up and back, opening her wide, with the easy grace of a _danseur_ positioning a _danseuse_ in a ballet, equal parts precision and power. And, smooth as slipping into a dance, they come together, her body stretching deliciously around his—a sweet shudder and a shock of _Ohhhh_. He swallows her first blossoming cry against his mouth, feeling her go boneless, pliant, as he fills her in one long stroke. His pulse seems to thub everywhere—a sultry cadence that affects her like his voice. Heat coiling down her spine. Alighting each nerve. Transmuting brown eyes to vivid red.

She relishes his jittery groan when he is fully settled within her. His breath fans hot and moist in her ear:

" _Saya_."

The way he calls her name, sibilant, yearning, always sends a thrill through her.

There is something so urgent about it, so insidiously possessive.

Eyes closed, she twines her arms and legs around him, face half-hidden under a fall of hair. She can never meet his eyes at this point. His gaze has the power to pierce her alive. She's terrified of all the _What If's_ he might see lurking in her psyche.

She only knows, that as long as she shies from him, even when she is pinned under him, utterly at his mercy, dissolving in waves of delirious pleasure, she'll be safe somehow.

No backlash for losing herself. Not as long as she doesn't open her eyes to acknowledge it.

And each time she does this, Solomon only holds her tighter.

He craves possession of more than just her body.

Short unpolished nails dig into the flesh of his back as he begins to move—a slow, studied, serpentine rhythm. Lips pressing to hers, ravenous yet languorous, swallowing each broken whimper, only to tear away on gasps of air and brand hot openmouthed kisses along her neck, her breasts. Even with her eyes squeezed shut, Saya feels him gauging each reaction that flashes across her face. Ascertaining the right cadence to make her jerk and tremble beneath him; the precise angle to make her keen with every breath.

Then Solomon's face is in her hair, her neck. He whispers: "Is this all right, angel? You like this?"

"Mmm." Shivering, she clutches his shoulders, her breath sawing in and out in harsh mewing gulps. Lost to everything but the feel of him inside her; to his voice winding raspy and insinuating in her ear. Their rocking sifts more loose hair across her face, bringing out a sheen of sweat on their bodies. Turns the slide of skin on skin into something liquid and lascivious. And all the while, he draws it out—deep heavy strokes. Each one hitting her just barely so, over and over. Making her moan and shudder and finally beg.

"Solomon please— _please_ —"

"Please, what?" Gently, Solomon nips her earlobe. She feels him smirk. "What do you want?"

"Please—" She _hates_ when he does this. And yet, she loves it. " _Please_ —go faster—"

He doesn't—at least not at once. Cradles her head in his widespread hands instead, dotting hot kisses around the flushed clock of her face before bringing his mouth to hers, melding like two connecting magnets. Sighing, he catches her against him. Rolls onto his back, so he is sprawled half-propped against the pillows, Saya straddling his waist.

Her head snaps back; she mews into his mouth.

Solomon undoes the kiss to regard her. Lolling against the pillows, languid and elegant by the periwinkle-blue ambiance, he reminds her of a marquis with his favorite courtesan.

"Do what you like," he whispers. "Let me see you."

Shakily, she clasps her hands on the back of his neck. Rides his lap, as he has taught her; rocking her hips slowly and squeezing her muscles to keep her arousal on a deep simmer. Solomon sighs, his fingers spanned wide across her ribs. Half-controlling, half-supporting her. Leaning in, he licks at the sweat rolling down her neck. Presses wet kisses to her breasts, mouthing and teething, until she cannot keep still.

"Sol—Solomon—!"

"Mmm." He shifts under her, grinding side to side, making of her flesh a slick vacuum. Whimpering, she buries her face into his hair. They are pressed so tight now, torso to torso, sweat gluing their skins together. She keeps her eyes closed, taking a mental snapshot of the delicious moment. Each breath, each motion, a sipping sigh, a wicked slide, wraps her in a sultry cocoon. As if time has collapsed; renewing itself into something slower yet faster. Something entirely theirs.

An entrancing illusion. But easier to succumb to than the dark specters always plucking at her—the bed empty except for the two of them, yet crowded with the fallen; enemies and friends and everyone in between, their memories diffused yet somehow concentrated into an icy knot in her mind.

Only motion, sensation, can exorcise them. Or, failing that, quash them beneath the overwhelming force of Solomon's physical possession.

"Angel?" He catches her face in both hands. Kisses her fluttering eyes and flaming cheeks. "Look at me. Does this feel good?"

"Ye-esss." She sinks down, rocking slowly in his lap, but cannot meet his gaze. He strokes her hair, gathering it off her face, where it keeps spilling back. His whole body is a damp, hot wall of living muscle beneath her, against her: the tight clasp of his arms and the long sweep of his thighs are a bulwark trapping her in, a yielding prisoner. With each roll of her hips, he breathes in emphatic urgency, a low-pitched complexity of hums that run parallel with _Don't stop_ and _Just like that_.

Outside, dawn is cresting, a bright rhomboid of sunlight floating in through the window: the atmosphere is warm and redolent of their bodies. Bit by bit, she moves harder. Lets him ply her with thirsty kisses, drugging whispers. Each one luring her closer toward what eludes her so cruelly, but which she must to have. Trembling, she wraps herself tighter around him, in fitful control but ferocious concentration. Half-bitten sobs tripping out, no matter how she tries to quiet them, shaping themselves into abject words of one syllable, so eloquent of wild frustration, unconcealed need.

"Please. _Please_."

The room spins upside-down. Suddenly, she is on her back, her hair splayed everywhere, bent double with her legs curled around the columns of Solomon's arms. The change of angle sinks him deeper into her, makes her cry out. Solomon's mouth presses hers open; he swallows the sound, feeding her with his hot humid breath as he begins to move—tight hard pummeling jabs that push her, each one, closer and closer toward exploding.

Laid open, mindless, Saya flails, one hand dragging helplessly at cool bedsheets, the other tangled in the damp nest of Solomon's thick hair. Sharp teeth and slick tongue rake electric lines along her throat, spilling hungry hypnotic syllables against her overheating flesh. Whispering things that make her gasp, that make her clench; his voice more salt and sex than suits and sophistication.

Then his right hand is working between their bodies. Finding and stroking her, purring hot encouragement as she pants and strains into the touch. All thought draining out.

"Solomon—oh— _oh God_ —!"

The echoes of her pleas are eerie. Almost tormented. Within moments, their dreamy waltz blurs into a tortuous grind.

Time melts away. Awareness narrows to his intensifying motions, her sleek sensations; desperation overlaying shredded sobs and slippery sweat like a crackling miasma of static. She knows she is teetering to the brink when her palms press jerkily to her face.

Shielding her eyes. Staving off his hot gaze.

His fingers snatch her wrists, pinning them flat above her head. She gasps as his thumbs press each pulse-point. Not quite hard enough to bruise skin. Not quite gentle enough to break free of.

An entreaty. A demand to acknowledge where she is, and with whom.

The action, while nowhere near as forceful, flashes her back to that day at the Zoo. Where she ran from him on that cobbled waterside bridge, ran from the stinging truths he was hurling at her. And he yanked her back. Forcing her to open her eyes and acknowledge her reality.

"Saya..." His mouth burrows through her hair, against her ear. The command is clear even as his voice is achingly frayed.

Impelled by a force she cannot understand, her eyes snap open, locking on his. And everything ignites into a brilliant cataract.

She may deny him the intimacy of her gaze. But in this moment, all sense and boundary blurred, the power between them is transposed in every sense. In this moment, _he_ holds the key to her rapture, her fulfillment. The urgency that riddles her, boiling beneath her every gasp and spasm, is entirely in _his_ power to bestow—and they both know it.

The climax surges from every inch of her, out of light and darkness, a palpitating shock across her entire system. Head flinging back as her body arches under his, hair tangling wild across her face. Solomon swallows her helpless sobbing cries, reimbursing them with a long groan as her rattling completion triggers his own.

His heartbeat pounds loud and hard as he falls slack against her, a hot heavy blanket pressed upon her skin. Saya lies still under him, gulping in air, willing her pulse to slow down. Fingertips moving reflexively, shakily through his mussed hair, in time with both their slowing gasps. The cool air of the room makes her aware of the sweat filming her skin, the flush on her cheeks and forehead.

Her lips move. It takes her a moment to realize she is murmuring his name.

Abruptly, she has a phantom flash of cool white fingers fluttering through her hair. Cool white lips pressing light and tender to her feverish brow. A voice whispering her name, ethereal and ghostly, yet as intensely felt as the heat of Solomon's palm, splayed against her belly in that satisfied, possessive gesture that is so habitual to him.

Wincing, Saya closes her eyes.

Each time, it is _Solomon's_ name, _Solomon's_ mouth, that claims and consumes her own. Yet when everything is over and done with, heartbeats slowing in silence, limbs slackening to depletion, it is _Haji_ whom she seems to lie beside in her mind, _Haji_ who always holds her in the darkness.

How often have his face and body been unwillingly superimposed before Solomon's, in their most tender, languid, private moments together, that are meant to be between her and her husband alone? How often, in the feverish pitch of their lovemaking, has she found herself edging to helpless orgasm by imagining— _no_ , not even _imagining_ , because the act suggests autonomy, deliberation, and this is far deeper, something as base and elemental as breathing—the cool feel of Haji's skin, the cool taste of his mouth, his sleek tongue and careful, capable hands working her into a sobbing, quivering froth until she cannot tell if the pleasure blooms from outside, from the overpowering demand of Solomon's body, or inside, from the equally irresistible tug of Haji's memory?

It is the most sordid secret in her bed-life. The one thing, of all the wicked games Solomon has taught her, that paralyzes her with shame. Haji has _no place_ in her new life, _no place_ in her bed. Yet even now, he seems ever-present, his face flickering between every minute when the silence between her and Solomon stretches too long, and it is impossible to think of anything else.

_What's wrong with me?_

_What kind of person am I, that I can keep thinking this way?_

Solomon combs away the hair across her face. She hears his playful smirk. "What is this, some new sort of cocoon? Where are you hiding under there?"

Shyly, Saya meets his eyes. "Right here."

He kisses her again, urgency replaced by contentment. She lets him gather her closer, settling her head against his shoulder. Can sense his eyes on her; assessing, calculating. Almost parsing out the color of her thoughts.

"Who are you thinking about?" he asks, serious and unexpected.

Saya freezes. "Huh? Wh-what? I wasn't—"

He shakes with soundless laughter. "It was just a joke, angel. No need to be so jumpy."

She tries to relax, return his smile. "It's not that. I just...I think I was starting to fall asleep again."

"Fall asleep? No, you weren't." His voice is tender, but mildly sardonic. "But, as usual, you were someplace far far off."

"Wh-what do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. You're always thinking about something, Saya. You always seem to be grieving." Eyes closed, he drawls, " _Post coitum omne animal triste est_. I wonder if perhaps they got that phrase from you."

She manages a weak laugh, warding off the subject. "Um...I like it better when you recite me erotic poetry than when you compare me to a sad animal."

"I am very serious, Saya." A light finger taps her brow. His eyes open to meet hers. "Where do you go when you close your eyes that way? What do you keep seeing?"

"Nothing…I…"

"You think I can't tell?" He takes her chin, making her look at him. "You've been this way for a few days now. What's the matter? You know you can tell me anything."

She hesitates. What can she possibly say to him? What reason can she give?

It is so like her, to wall herself in immediately after making love. Solomon's always more interested in holding her in the dark, in making teasing, lascivious, appreciative remarks, subtly priming her for a second bout.

But this is different. He's never out-and-out pressed her for explanations this way. Never looked at her with such intense eyes.

She senses he won't take _No_ for an answer at this point, and tries to muster a reply.

"It's just...it's nothing, Solomon. Really. I was just...remembering something."

"About the war?"

"Mm." A half-truth, so she forgives herself for saying it.

With each memory of Haji, of Diva, flashes of the war are never too far behind. They assail her the most violently in these moments, where she has no room for any other thought. Lying in the dark, defenses stripped open, mind curiously vacant, the memories are free to claw at her, sharp as razor shiruken.

She averts her face, hiding from Solomon even as she presses closer to him. "Please, Solomon. I...I don't want to talk about it. Please let's just forget about it right now."

"We have to talk about it at some point, Saya. Better now than never, as you clearly seem to be stalling for." He smoothes her hair under a patient hand, "There's so much burden you've taken on your shoulders in the past, but you don't seem to realize you're free now. The war is over and done with. Just let it go."

She winces, but cannot deny this. He is right.

Even now, a part of her feels something will crash into disaster, the moment she's too happy. Self-flagellation is still deeply enmeshed to her nature, maggots festering in the psyche.

"It's not that," she whispers.

"What then?"

What? What to say to him? "Sometimes I'm just… afraid."

"Afraid?"

"I'm afraid…that none of this is real." She closes her eyes, refusing to look at him. How rarely she has ever articulated her own fears. Just saying them aloud seems to redouble her terror. "I'm afraid to be too happy."

"You've never had the chance to try, Saya."

"No…"

_Everytime I did, I lost someone dear to me._

He takes her chin, forcing her gaze to meet his. "Saya, you're being silly. Nothing is going to happen to you anymore. You must get that out of your mind. I can help you—but I need you to at least meet me halfway, open up to me. I will do everything I can to make you get better again—nothing is irretrievable. After all, we have nearly an eternity to try."

An eternity.

Such a dizzying concept.

She's never had such a thing before. A chance to laugh without regret, to twirl under the sun without looking over her shoulder. And she's certainly never ventured into such uncharted territory without her Chevalier, her constant companion throughout the decades.

No wonder she's so frightened. None of this seems real to her.

She welcomes Solomon's arm as it snakes around her shoulders, drawing her closer. The residue of tension in her muscles fades by degrees, until she is melting against his heat, his scent. All her surroundings are so transient. But he is real, real as the sensations he awakens in her—part giddy uncertainty, part absorbed delight.

She can practically feel the quality of his obsession for her sometimes. Welling all around her, a heady wash of wine. Haji loved her too, but he never took such an avid study of her, never spelled out her every facet and feature like a sonnet. He was always so quiet, yet she never felt like anything was missing when they were together. Communication was prevalent between every breath, every kiss. She knew he loved her, just as she knew they both breathed air to exist.

It was Saya's own self-hatred that caused their separation.

Her neck throbs dully. Lifting a hand, she touches the stinging spot.

A bead of slippery blood dots her fingertip.

Saya stares at it, bemused. Solomon gingerly touches his own mouth, checking for traces that might adhere.

"How did—" she begins thickly.

"I … must have cut you with my teeth at some point." Solomon sounds more placating than worried. "I'm so sorry—I'll have to be more careful."

"No, but—wh-what if you had swallowed this?"

"I didn't. Here. Let me look at you. Are you hurt anywhere else?"

She shies from his searching fingertips, sitting up jerkily. "You could have swallowed that! You'd never be able to know—not until it was too late!"

"Saya, I think you might be overreacting. I wasn't—"

"My blood is still poisonous to you! What if you accidentally tasted this?"

He grimaces; wry and cajoling. "Then I would die a truly happy man. And honestly, don't I always say you are going to be the death of me?"

"This is not funny! How can you joke about this! Ohgod, what if I—" Something bursts within her, viscid tears erupting from her eyes.

A sickening flash of her father, lying blood-splattered on cold steel, demonic talons clasped around hers. Of Irene writhing amid an effusion of gray cracks, whimpering _help me, help me_. Poor Riku, lying supine and stony on the hard floor, peering at her with eyes of perpetual pleading.

And _Haji._ Poor poor Haji, thrashing in the brutal throes of his transformation to her Chevalier, garbled howls and frothy blood shooting between his white lips.

_My fault my fault all my fault…_

Her shoulders rattle with sobs before she even realizes it. She covers her mouth, struggling to suppress the noise. But it escapes from between her fingers, flowing like water between cracks.

"Saya?" Gently, Solomon pries her hands away. "Saya, please. It's all right…"

She doesn't answer. If anything, her tears redouble. She seems to have such little control over her emotions these days, or indeed, over her memories at all. The faintest reminder of the war rives her with flashbacks and agony.

Her tears are hot and wet against her cheeks, lines of lava dripping across her skin. Sighing, Solomon passes an arm around her. After a wild jerk of resistance, she slumps against him. He rocks her gently, her head tucked in beneath his chin; a soothing motion like a lullaby. Patiently stroking her hair as she shakes on deep convulsive sobs.

"It's all right," he says. "That's enough now. It's all right."

And Saya desperately wants to believe him, even though she can't stop crying, can't escape the feeling that something inside her feels constantly missing, _broken_.

Something— _someone_ —she can't give a name to, or perhaps is too afraid to name at all.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, but doesn't understand to whom, or for what. "I'm so so sorry..."

And though Solomon only holds her tighter, she knows he understands even less than she.


	8. Limbo

He's not surprised to find himself in Hong Kong again.

He's always felt at home in the city, at home in everything it represents.

The obscurity, the constant oblivious rush of it. All these people, both native Hongkongers and foreigners, sweeping in a tight-packed blur across the streets.

The panoply of flashing neon signs, vivid and dazzling to the eyes, advertising food, hotels, beer, clubs. Shades of red and pink and green lurid against crouching tenements and imposing skyscrapers, blinking in a cacophony of different languages. Streets jam-packed with cars and bikes, markets a mélange of exotic smells and voices crowing in different dialects.

Haji has arrived only a week ago, and already, he is drowning in the city's multicolored maelstrom.

No one to know him here, no one to ask him questions, to expect things of him. No duties, no responsibilities, nothing whatsoever to do with his past.

With Saya gone, he doesn't want to amalgamate himself into that sphere again. He cannot bear it. Not yet.

It is… too soon.

He subsists on silence and isolation here, coasting along the streets without direction during the day, soliciting dank rooms with peeling wallpaper and saggy beds by night. Often, he stays indoors and plays cello into the dreary afternoons and greater parts of the evenings, listening to the murky drone of traffic outside, blare of horns and shouts.

He has no consciousness of the rest of the world, no awareness of time. In this chaotic and colorful place, his own aura is tinged in gray, grief and solitude turning everything oppressive.

Saya's memory, rather than going into abeyance, is as integrated with him as ever. Often, he hears himself talking to her in his head, like to some light and charming imaginary friend. Despite all the years that have passed, he's never been able to stop that habit. He knows, realistically, that people who converse with internalized voices are lunatics—but at this point, he can't say he cares.

Insanity means nothing, if it means he still shares some silent link with Saya. Right now, it is the only access to her that he has.

Without it, he is even more alone than he would have been, had he fulfilled that bloodcurdling promise, and taken her life with his own hands.

* * *

" _Why do you stay with me_?"

She wipes a smear of blood across her cheek, refusing to meet his eyes. Her gaze is pinned to the barren trees before them, a sea of jagged gray bark.

The branches slice angular patterns across the air; the sky seems to bear the same shade as Saya's voice. A brittle overhang that tinges everything to frigid blue.

Haji doesn't answer. Seated atop a fallen tree trunk, he sets aside his whetstone and silver dagger, regarding Saya cautiously.

She reminds him of one of the tree trunks. Whip-thin and motionless, perched on the rocks with her still-bloody fingers curled around her sword hilt. Frozen in place, strands of blood-caked hair unmoving against the huff of wind.

Her eyes remind Haji of a doll's—bright with an oily luster.

Emotionless.

It is during the decade before the Vietnam massacre—the decade he later termed as the _limbo point._ The era where duty pared Saya of all sentiment, honing her to an implacable icy point. Yet so differently from how she was during their final clash against Diva.

During that closing battle, Saya, for all her steely edges, still held a wellspring of hope. Even as she begged Haji to tell her to fight, to keep their atrocious promise, he could see a _life_ still flickering in her eyes.

That life her human family had kept burning, and which he so desperately wished to preserve, even as their death-pact weighed heavier on him with each passing hour.

But in that _time of limbo_ , the Saya he fought alongside filled him with an inescapable dread. Her expression was like the embodiment of a disaster that had yet to pass. A figure suspended mid-fall at the edge of a cliff; an axe swinging mid-slice at its victim's throat.

Just about there, but not quite—frozen in that hollow terrifying second where the world falls away, and there are no qualms or consequences, no past, no present, no future.

Nothing at all.

" _Saya_ …" he says, tentative.

Saya's lip curdles. " _No._ Don't _ask me what the matter is. Just tell me. Why do you stay with me? Why would you want to return to me every time—even though I know you have the choice to walk away_? _Even after everything I've put you through?_ "

Her words, despite their icy sheen, are pleading. She seeks, Haji knows, neither an explanation nor an assurance from him—but an excuse. Something to dissuade her from her own self-hatred. Something _, someone_ _else_ , to direct her infinite frustrations upon.

She no longer cries after each harrowing bloodbath. No longer sheds quiet tears into the fabric of his coat. Conflict has calloused her, as much in mind and soul as across each delicate fingertip. Numbed her past even the human release of grieving.

She no longer laments. She seethes. She no longer defends. She decimates.

A true killer in every sense of the word; both warrior and martyr amalgamated into this fragile, dangerous creature who glares at him now.

" _Saya_ ," he tries again.

She cuts him off with one livid movement. " _Don't. Don't look at me like that. I want to know, Haji. I want to know_ what _you do it for. This battle is mine to fight; Diva's escape was my responsibility, all those people she slaughtered, they're my liabilities. But what about you? What makes you go through all this suffering, or wait for me years on end? I bring nothing but agony to everyone around me. And I know that includes you—"_

" _Saya, no—"_

" _Don't look me in the face and lie to me, Haji! You've lost even more in this battle than I have. I've stopped your time, I've stripped you of your humanity. I've made you wait decades and decades between my every hibernation, I've hurt you and trampled you, and still you've stuck on! Why do you do it, Haji? You know I'm no good for anyone! You know you have no future as long as you're with me—"_

Her voice hasn't once risen through her outburst. But Haji can see her knuckles whitening with each word, the cords on her neck rising. The ominous grind of tectonic plates scraping against one another in an impending seismic cataclysm.

" _Saya_ ," Haji says, low but insistent. " _You know full well why I stay with you. This battle is as much mine as it is yours. I swore to you that I would protect you, until you had completed your mission to defeat Diva. That I would follow you, and support you until it was finally over."_

Her eyes squeeze shut. _"But how long, Haji? How long will you keep doing this for me? How many more times will you endure being gutted and stabbed at my expense, at waiting decades alone while I lie useless and as good as dead in that cocoon? How much can a person possibly suffer for someone else?"_

" _I suffer no less than you do, Saya_. _For every time I have been wounded, I can think of twice more when the same has happened to you. For every decade I spend waiting for you to awaken, at least I remain in a world that changes, that distracts me. But I know that during your Long Sleep, you dream of nothing but our battles with Diva, that you think of nothing except destroying her. How can you judge as to whether I suffer more, or you do?"_

" _How can_ you _judge!"_

It erupts from her mouth, ferocious as a lightning-crack.

Saya is on her feet then, her back to him. Her hands tremble as she knots them into fists; her sword lies at her feet, an abandoned mantle of self-restraint.

" _How can you judge my suffering, or your own, Haji? How can you decide whose is more or less? You can't. You can't, any more than I can. Which is why I'm asking you, why do you stay with me? You have no reason to; no obligation. Each time I go into my Long Sleep, a part of me wonders: is this going to be the last time? Is he going to leave after this time? Will he go off on his own, decide to break free from me at last?"_

" _Saya—"_ Haji is on his feet then too. He approaches her in an eyeblink, but doesn't touch her. His voice is earnest, pleading, like the embrace he cannot bring himself to give her.

" _Saya, what would make you think that I would stop waiting for you?_ _I promised, did I not? That I would stay with you until this battle ends—"_

" _And what if it never does? What if it goes on and on, and there's never going to be an end in sight? What if I'll never get to rest? That's what I keep asking myself. If this mission will last an eternity, then everything around me will just keep on fading and dying, like it always does. Again and again. Everyone will keep on leaving. Because nothing lasts in this life. Nothing…not even…"_

She breaks off, whirling to face him then. Haji's stunned by the tears in her eyes.

Viscid and glacial, brimming her eyelashes as if unsure whether to waterfall or wane.

" _Haji, you can't say you'll always be at my side, not when everything is so temporary. One day—one day, you'll leave too, just like everyone else. Just like Joel, just like all the comrades we lost in every single battle. Nothing will last for long; not as long as I live, or while Diva is still free. I'm a curse as long as I still exist, up until I've completed my mission—but what right do I have to infect your life too?"_

_"Saya..."_

_"Don't say that's not true! It is! I ravage a part of you more and more with each passing day! I can see it in your eyes, even if you don't say anything! Don't you think I know what I'm doing to you? But Haji, that's why I'm asking;_ why do you stay with me? _You deserve to be free. I can't keep on—"_

When Haji's hands close on her shoulders, the tears finally spill. She lifts a startled hand against their warmth, and, in a delayed wallop, the grief crashes over her. Suddenly, for the first time in years, she's weeping without end, face buried into his shoulder.

Haji holds her tightly, aching with the knowledge that there's nothing more he can do in the face of her suffering. His role is only this; to support her through each trial, all the while silently praying for a benediction from fate.

Something, _anything_ , that will end her pain. End it so that he will not have to, as he has promised to do.

In the worst possible way.

Saya's fingers are knotted into the material of his coat. She pours out all her arid agony in burning wet stains across his suit. Her scent is heavy with blood and insomnia and stoppered regret. It makes Haji hold her tighter against him.

_Saya..._

_If only you knew. If only you knew I cannot exist without you. I cannot imagine ever abandoning you—not now, when I know you need me the most. Not ever; not until this war has been won._

_But that doesn't mean... doesn't mean I don't hate every second of it, Saya. I do. But not because it brings me pain—I hate it because of what it is doing to_ you _._

At length, Saya takes a deep shuddering breath, drawing back to regard him. Her eyes are bleary, lashes spider-webbed with tears, streaking white trails across her blood-smeared face.

Yet, in Haji's eyes, she has never looked more exquisite.

" _Haji. I know I have no right to ask this of you, b-but... don't go. Not like everyone else does. You're all I've got left in this battle. Everytime I look at your face, it reminds me of everything I've done wrong, of everything I am. But it keeps me going. You remind me why I'm doing this, why I have to fight."_

It slashes Haji like a blade, to hear that his presence serves only as a reminder of her suffering. But that guilt is supplanted by his understanding of what she must do, and by his own need to protect her until she has attained her goal.

" _Saya. As long as you exist to carry out your mission, I will stay by your side and help you, however I can_ ," he whispers. " _I swore it when we first began, and I will not go back on my word now. This battle is not yours alone; it is also mine. Not out of obligation, but because I choose to be here. I choose to fight by your side."_

" _I know. I know, Haji. God, I'm so so sorry, but... I'm just so tired of all this fighting. I'm always tired, all the time; there isn't a moment when I'm not. But...while you're with me, I know that at least I have someone who understands that. I know I'm not alone."_ She pauses, then repeats this softly, as though reminding herself of it as much as conceding to it. " _You're responsibility, but also my legacy, Haji._ _You make me keep fighting, but in the end, you'll be the one to take me away from this nightmare too. Everything starts and ends with you. You understand that, don't you?"_

His throat burns, but he answers without faltering. " _I do."_

She gazes up at him then, bitter, wistful. Reaches up to place a warm calloused hand on his cheek. _"I wonder sometimes, you know. After you fulfill your promise—will you find a new reason for your life? Something better to go on for? I...I hope you will, Haji. At least this way, when I'm gone, I know you'll finally be free."_

" _Saya—"_ Her words chill him. He tightens his grip around her, willing those ugly thoughts to leave.

She closes her eyes, but her hand never leaves his face. Haji feels her fingers sketching the cool curve of his jaw, his lips. _"This life…it's ugly and cold and it's full of pain. But it's the only life I have to go forward on. And you make it possible for me, Haji. You remind me that I live through this because I have to. Because no one else can. And for that... I'll always be thankful to you."_

Haji swallows, but can't answer. In the wake of her humid touch, her searing words, his eyes are squeezed shut.

How chilling, how utterly cheerless, to know that he exists for nothing except ushering her on the route to her death. In chaining her each day to this terrible mission.

But it is only much later that it occurs to Haji, that in that sentence, Saya never once mentioned her mission at all.

It was her _life_ that she was talking about.

And now, even in the wake of her absence, Haji can't help but wonder what she was trying to tell him.

* * *

Portland Street.

Buildings thrusting tall and proud into the dark sky. Streams of lighted windows running down to coalesce with the great torrent of cars and lighted shopfronts. Stalks of pure energy birthed from an ocean of fire, an ocean constantly heaving and swaying, bubbling with verve.

Haji is hypnotized by the unreal glow the city seems to give off, life and emotion made palpable. The brilliant green light atop Langham Place—that monstrous skyscraper rising like some Biblical column over the scintillating streets—is both eerie and trancelike.

He skirts through the locals, weaving fast along the busy streets. Despite being one of the few Caucasian men in the crush, he manages to avoid attention. He is at Argyll street, and uncomfortably next-door to Hong Kong's notorious red-light district, a few blocks down. Catering to mostly local clientele—he knows as well as anyone that the karaoke bars and clubs for the foreigners are over at Wanchai, at Lockhart Road.

He bears no interest in either area. The idea of touching someone, of being touched by someone, is repulsive to him. Sexuality, along with every other emotion, seems to be at a standstill. Or, at least, this is what he tells himself night after night, as he wanders unseeing through a thousand crowded streets brimming with female flesh, swirling with possibilities and temptations.

But he cannot bring himself to succumb, not so easily. Such physical caprice is not a part of his nature. Never has been. Why pretend to be something he is not?

_Why pretend?_

There is an irony in there that he knows he is missing.

He stops at one of the unassuming shopfronts, blinking in the glow of red and yellow beer signs in Cantonese and English. Orders a glass of water, merely for the sake of something to hold in his hands. The local barman, blank-eyed and shiny-faced in the humid tavern, barely looks him askance.

Holding the icy wet glass in his palms, Haji stares at the cigarette-pocked surface of the table, tuning out the shouts and murmurs rising all around him. Affairs of other people, of the outside world in general, hold minimal interest to him.

He drinks slowly, unhurriedly, without pause but without haste. The reek of cigarette smoke around him, smell of sweat and alcohol, seems to overlay that of the malaise of humanity.

People come here from all over, to get drugged and drunk and groped, to brawl and harm and swindle. To forget the drudgery of their lives, at least for a few moments. Here, there seems to be no truth to the grandiose concepts of love and civilization. In the face of this disordered murk, it seems so pretentious, so concave.

Or perhaps it just seems that way to Haji, whose sole existence has cycled day and night to a mission, a purpose.

Without it, he has room for nothing else.

It is a long time before he can make himself pay for the water and leave. The muggy film of the outside air, the shift and shove of all the people in the streets, feels unreal to him.

The whole world is unreal, in the wake of Saya's absence.

Mechanically, Haji lets himself be carried, like a dead body in a river, along with the current of people all around. Helpless, thoughtless, uncaring of his destination, uncaring of his present location. It feels good not to have to think for once. To not have to remember, or plan, or rationalize. It feels _freeing_.

And that is precisely when he sees her.

His first consciousness is not visual, but visceral. That sharp crawling thrill throughout his entire body, blood humming, agitated and energized, skin, mind and very soul calling out in raw need.

 _Saya_.

He sees her behind the glass of a lighted shopfront. An expensive clothing store, brimming the outside of a vast multiplex mall, which, like all the rest, were constructed to tamp down the sex-trade at Portland Street, but soon proved to bear not as much as a dent on that shady industry.

She has her back to him, shielded by shining green glass. But Haji would know her profile anywhere.

It is the same one he sees whenever he closes his eyes, whenever he sees the sunlight filter through green leaves or moonlight striking the horizon at sea. The same face he churns for with every breath, but which he can never superimpose on any woman he meets, because all that he can think of when he sees anyone else is, _this is not Saya, this will never be Saya._

Except in this case, it _is_ Saya.

She is standing before a rack of clothing, studying a selection of blouses. Clad in a simple peach dress, whose gossamer lace folds dance like evening sunrays around her calves. Small feet clad in a pair of intricately-strapped sandals, nails polished and painted a delicate shade of pink.

The sight of her takes Haji's breath away. He finds himself unable to do much else but drink her in, motionless on the crowded sidewalk.

She has put on some weight, and it suits her. There is a rosier tint to her skin and an apple-like fullness to her face and figure. Her hair hangs loose, a thick veil that shades her eyes and frames her cheeks. When she brushes it back in a girlish, demure gesture, he sees the two bright earrings winking at her ears, in tandem with the choker at her throat.

On instinct, Haji finds himself drawing closer, if only to get a better glance of her. His pulse trips at the thought that she might see him, filling him with tortured hope and dread.

But Saya keeps her eyes on the clothes, oblivious as she often is to her surroundings. He sees her pick out a pink blouse, the same shade of a rose he once presented to her as a boy, holding it against her frame and examining it closely.

Her expression reminds Haji of the one in their days at the Zoo. Faintly piqued, lips puckered in a little pout. It is then that he notices she is wearing make-up—very little of it, but discernable to him all the same. Her mouth is painted a glossy shade of red, eyes haloed in smoky black, bringing out the hypnotic red tints within.

She looks lovely, heartbreakingly so. Yet something about her seems… different.

Haji cannot put his finger on it, but she appears altered. Subdued, almost.

Perhaps it is just the change in her lifestyle. Perhaps it is just the lengthy gap of time since he has last laid eyes on her.

Or perhaps, it is simply the mark of possession another man now bears over her, head to toe.

 _Solomon_.

Haji's jaw tightens. He sees the man, _her husband_ , striding out from behind a tall rack of clothes, a solicitous shopkeeper at his heels. At first glance, he looks like he always does—a sunny boy emerging from a stream on a summer day—glowing, refreshed, floaty with energy. Dressed in a perfectly-cut black suit, fluffy gold shards glittering through his hair in the fluorescent lights.

A hint of a smile hovers in perpetuity about his lips. Haji's jaw clenches as he sets a hand on Saya's shoulder, turning her around to face him.

There is an intense physical knowledge to that simple gesture.

Haji watches him pry the pink blouse from Saya's hands. Setting it aside dismissively, he directs her attention to a more current, more expensive-looking item that the shopkeeper holds out for her. Saya's mouth opens. Haji knows that she is about to protest. He can practically hear her say, _no thank you, I like that one._

Then the shopkeeper presses the glittery dress into her palms, urging her to try it on. Solomon concurs with a gentle but firm nudge, and Saya reluctantly concedes, heading for the dressing room.

Haji has ducked out of her sight before she can see him, but all the same, he notices her pause midway, glancing furtively behind her.

He wonders if she can sense him nearby, wonders if she can feel his eyes boring into her flesh.

It is then that he catches her pressing one delicate hand to her stomach, and realizes what the difference in her appearance stems from. The dress, flowy as it is, can't disguise the burgeoning bump there. Her pregnancy is dispiritingly clear. Haji can see the reality of it all over her body, in the way she holds herself and moves.

He feels an intense surge of anger, a primordial jealousy that Solomon was able to grant Saya this one thing he himself could not. If he could, would she have perhaps stayed with him? Would she never have chosen between both men at all?

Yet even as he gnashes his teeth, seething with fury and deprivation, he is gratified that she looks well, that she seems healthy. She appears to be catered to in every way, physically, materially—Haji has lived long enough, and observed enough people, to know the gait and gestures of a sheltered and satisfied woman when he sees one.

She looks so cultivated, so softened and smoothed out, with the subtle sheen of a pedigreed feline.

Almost... _content_.

But then why is it, as he watches her head to the dressing room, does her expression make him feel as though she is as isolated amid that extravagant mass of riches, as he is standing cold and solitary in the night street?


	9. Knife

She's never forgotten the first time a knife was aimed for her throat.

Salient flash of steel, her eyes reflected across the blade. Unreality spreading through each limb, heart juddering so hard it seemed to swallow her entire being. She recalls leering voices in purple twilight, ropey hands reaching out for her. Hissing murmurs and avaricious eyes.

And a moment later, a dark blur, pale fists windmilling, flinging her attackers back with all the vehemence of a typhoon.

_Haji._

That day she and Haji left the Zoo, the charred stench of the mansion still clinging to their noses, was the first time Saya was plunged headfirst into the murk of real life. Sheltered as she was from the ugliness beyond the Zoo's walls, she'd never imagined the outside world would be so rife with terror and deceit, rapacious eyes and hands.

People who wanted to hurt her, attack her at every turn. Threats that lurked behind every shadow, every smile and word.

And perhaps greatest of all, the threat lurking within her, coursing through her own blood.

The same blood that transformed her closest friend into a grotesque winged monster, driving him to struggle tooth and claw against the gang of men who tailed their carriage from the Zoo. Screams, howls, tearing into the darkening sky; swirls of dust and blood erupting amid each toppling body and blow.

While she knelt in a pile of wilted limbs and frothy petticoats, cold pebbles digging into her legs through her voluminous dress. Hands pressed to her mouth, fighting to suppress the scream ripping its way out. A scream for both the atrocity unfurling before her, and the fact that Haji was driven to carry it out.

All because of her blood.

All because of _her_.

And now, a century after, as cold metal is pointed at her face, she watches another carnage unfold for her sake.

 _Empty your wallets,_ the sneering man orders, _and you don't get hurt._

Tall, burly, with a creased weather-beaten face and dark pindot eyes. The rest of his companions circle Saya and Solomon, exuding waves of liquor and malice. Six, maybe seven, Saya can't tell. The street is dark, cramped. The buildings appear to stoop over their heads in that same threatening manner as their attackers.

Alone at this hour, in a neighborhood like this, she and Solomon must have seemed like easy targets. A pair of rich tourists, ripe for the pillaging.

Except when Solomon speaks, his words are icily clipped: _I would suggest you try someone else._

Sniggering laughter. Boots scraping across uneven cobblestones. S _hut up and do as you're told. Tell your woman to come closer._

_I am warning you. Stay back._

Saya hears far off melodies and crackling fireworks in the square beyond, the bustle of the celebrating fiesta. Fallas of Valencia, a five-day succession of the most hypnotic bonfires she has ever laid eyes on. The entire town seems ablaze, an intense conflagration that nearly puts her in mind of Vietnam.

Except instead of blood and screams, only giddy laughter and vivid streamers suffuse the air.

She and Solomon are perhaps a little too dizzy on wine and somnolent sipping kisses when it happens. Stumbling out of the swarming streets, away from the happy shrieks and dancing bodies, they duck hand-in-hand into an old-fashioned archway. Excited sweat and jubilant verve humming through them, as intoxicating as fresh blood.

The archway is darker, cooler than the outside street. There are no people here. The shadows muffle the glitter and clamor beyond, like a thick unfurling curtain. Solomon's mouth is hot and nibbling against Saya's; the wall he gently crowds her against is rough and cool across her sleeveless dress. Her hair is full of confetti, combed away with his luxuriant fingers.

Flickers of light, from firework and flame, harlequin him in pale gold, striking two points in his eyes. His laughter against her lips is mischievous, musical. Saya feels herself giggling in turn, letting his mobile mouth and reconaissant hands shape and tease at her however they will. Blushing at the things he murmurs against her ear, words that flutter in a moth-brush cascade across her skin, making her quiver, making her melt.

Her fingers tangle in the thick soft velvet of his hair, directing his mouth to hers, when by all rights she ought to be stopping him from doing this, especially here, where anyone can chance upon them by accident.

Which isn't far from what happens.

She knows something's wrong when Solomon goes perfectly still against her. Lightly, deliberately, his hands slip off her body; his expression recomposes to a cool mask. He takes a single step back, turning and extending an arm before her in the same gesture.

Confused, she stares at him, and then sees the intruders over his shoulder.

Sneering faces dissolve out of the darkness. Flashes of knives and one gleaming gun.

 _All the money out of your pockets._ Their eyes flick over her. _Take your jewelry off and come closer._

She freezes, hands opening and closing on empty air. Sword, sword, she wants her sword. She doesn't like the way these men are looking at her, doesn't like the way they are closing around her and Solomon. Her pulse pounds, a frantic tattoo against her ears. The whole scene reminds her too chillingly of the Zoo, to what nearly happened there.

And her next thought is fierce and immediate:

_Haji. I need Haji._

She can't see Solomon's face. But she senses the chilling violence running through his frame, feels the sharp static of his anger. There is a calm but sinister note in his voice:

_I'm telling you. Step away._

A flick-knife snaps open, brandished in his direction. _Don't argue, you cocky bastard. Do as you're told._

_I mean it. Leave us be, and you can walk away without getting hurt._

The men guffaw as though at a parade of clowns. The threat would bear more weight, Saya thinks, if spoken from behind the protection of a double-barreled rifle.

Solomon would laugh even harder than these men, if he heard her say that. He would tell her she is thinking too much like a human.

Chiropterans don't need rifles.

And as the closest man grabs Saya's arm, a repulsive smirk across his face, Solomon's blazing-red eyes, and the gleaming lance that shoots like solidified lightning from out of his sleeve, reminds her of as much.

What happens next is a chaotic blur.

Quick as a flash, Solomon cuts a dancelike orbit toward the man, severing his hand with one bone-chilling sweep. The cut is so swift, so clean, that for a moment the appendage remains intact upon the wrist. Then, a thin thread of blood spreads across the skin. Saya watches, aghast, as the hand slides clean off, tumbling to the floor in a prelude to the man's howling jittering body.

The remaining six men jerk back, unnerved by what they are seeing. The bandit with the gun extends his weapon for Solomon with jerky hands, letting rip a volley of bullets. Rock-shards _carraam_ off the archway's walls, the sound blending with the eruption of firecrackers, muffled by the skirl of too many voices.

Saya flinches, covering her head; Solomon merely dodges the whizzing bullets as though engaged in a macabre tango. An ephemeral flash of fireworks illuminates the street. For a heartbeat, Saya sees the outline of his face.

His expression is absolutely chilling.

He whizzes imperceptibly fast for the gunman, long Chiropteran blade extended. Telltale blue streaks his blow, cutting an arc across his victim's throat. In an explosive gush of crimson blood, the man's head flies off, hitting the asphalt at Solomon's feet. The spasming body falls to the floor, the gun clattering away.

Saya's hand flies involuntarily to her mouth; her pulse jacks up, beating like a sledgehammer against her ribs. The smell of the men's spilt blood is entrancing, unreal; the sight of their twitching shattered bodies is lurid, repulsive. Her own horror amazes her. After all, she has severed and mutilated chiropterans without a qualm; sent even her own blood-kin to an eternity of hellfire.

But there is a vast difference, she knows, between slaughter and self-defense.

Solomon clearly suffers no such qualms.

He leaps like quicksilver in the direction of the remaining men. Fireworks ignite above, throwing everything below in shades of black and red. In the spastic lighting, Saya watches Solomon and their attackers duel like shadow puppets. Blows lethal and mercurial as snakes, blood erupting in a gory facsimile to the fireworks. The men's aborted screams ring loud in her ears; their bodies topple with abrupt jerks, like marionettes cut off at the strings.

Blood streams red across gray cobblestones.

Frozen, Saya stares at the aftermath of the fugue, fingers pressed to her lips. Her heart bangs hard against her ears, louder still than the firecrackers. Watching the blood-soaked bodies sprawled all around, inhaling the stench of terror and death, she can't help see the scene from the Zoo superimposed.

The wildly-spinning wheel of the overflung carriage; the dust spiraling into the purple sky. Quivering bodies, like a ring of fallen dominoes, spread around the single upright figure. She has a brief flash of snapping wings and long tendrils of black hair.

Then fireworks flash again, and glittering blond curls and red eyes supercede in their place.

Solomon's black suit absorbs the bloodstains, but there are dark smears across his face. Rivulets drip from his chiropteran arm, dangling lax and sinister by his thigh, a stark paradox to the flawless white hand on the other side.

In the dingy street, he seems too brilliant, as though contrived of unearthly origins.

Then he turns around and glances at her, and Saya's self-restraint almost snaps from its moorings. Suddenly, it's all she can do not to scream uncontrollably, as she did that day outside the Zoo.

"Saya?" Solomon murmurs, and he sounds concerned. "Saya, are you all right?"

She can't answer. She feels immobilized to the spot.

"What is it? Are you hurt? What's wrong?"

And she does not know how to reply.

* * *

Towering skyscrapers. Streams of lighted windows streaking all around her. The sky is a rich moonless blue, framing fluttering black hair and the expansive span of wings. A familiar voice speaks, heavy with regret.

_That day, when we were leaving the Zoo…_

_I used my powers as a Chiropteran… and harmed humans in order to protect you._

A cool hand gently encircles the back of her head.

_But when you looked at me, your eyes were filled with sorrow and fear…_

A cool hard chin pressing to her forehead, cool breath rippling in currents across her skin.

_And ever since then, I have suppressed all my powers as a Chiropteran..._

Her feet meet hard cement, soft and melting as snowfall. Black wings sweep out to enclose her, a sturdy canopy against the chilly air.

With her cheek pressed to his chest, the oddly-consoling pressure of a chiropteran claw against her waist, Saya closes her eyes. Suddenly, she is more at peace than she can ever remember being, despite all the chaos that has preceded. She can't pinpoint what emotion sluices through her in that moment, can't account for the deep simmering that spreads through her entire body, save for the recollection of tears in her eyes.

It is only months afterward, when the war has ended and she believes Haji forever gone, that she realizes it was that instant, right when he snatched her out of empty air, confessed to her that heartbreaking truth, that she understood she loved him.

Understood too, that she had felt this emotion all along, that it was so much a part of her, so inextricably twined to her, that she had never questioned it.

Not even once.

_I never want to see that fear in your eyes again, Saya…_

* * *

Saya's eyes flutter open.

She lies immersed in glittering swirls of water. The skylight is a brilliant rainbow above her.

Segmented like a beehive, a vibrant octagon of colored shades. Soft streams of multicolored light fall across her body. Blue, red, green, painting her skin in dreamlike patches. Her hair billows through the hot water in a dark undulating wave; the bubbling whorls of the Jacuzzi knead her muscles, lulling, sensuous.

She tips her head back against the tub's lip, letting the languorous sensation wash over her. It's almost like being in Solomon's bed.

Foreboding ripples through her. She recalls, unbidden, the reason she is hiding here in the first place. To put some distance between herself and Solomon, think back on the attack during the fiesta, without losing her head.

Her eyes squeeze shut. She still sees the blood, still hears the horrific screams. The memory of Solomon's expression still chills her, steeping her with a livid terror she can't explain.

Or perhaps it's simply the fact that he shows no remorse for butchering those men. Not during the battle, nor afterward. As far as he is concerned, they had it coming.

He isn't Haji.

"I was only trying to protect you, you know."

Solomon's voice bounces lightly off the marble room, ethereal yet clear over the susurration of water.

Saya flinches, sitting upright in the sloshing froth. Her hands move reflexively for her chest, although underwater, she's quite decent, clad in a one-piece white swimsuit. But old habits die hard—her first reaction to having a man, even her own husband, chancing upon her half-dressed, is to mentally squeal _put some clothes on!_

"I—I didn't hear you come in," she stammers.

"I wanted to avoid disturbing you. At first I assumed you were asleep." A soft smile brushes Solomon's lips. "It wouldn't be the first time that has happened here."

She manages a slight smile in return. The first time she used the Jacuzzi, the sensation had so sedated her that she drifted off within minutes. In dreams, she'd imagined she was with her unborn twins, floating in a peaceful nebula of warmth, until Solomon had gently shaken her awake and helped her out of the tub, drying her off himself with a fluffy white towel before depositing her in bed.

She tries to connect that astonishing gentleness to the unflinching cruelty she witnessed at the fiesta, and finds herself unable to wrap her mind around both facets.

A squirming tension fills her.

"I know you are upset about what happened."

Saya winces. "Wh-what?"

"About the attack." Solomon's expression, his voice, is gentle. "I saw the look in your eyes back there. The way you won't look at me now. Did I really frighten you that much?"

She can't think of an answer.

Solomon approaches her slowly. He's changed out of his blood-soaked suit in favor of dark slacks and a soft white shirt. The ends of his hair glimmer in tight coils, still wet from his shower. There is a deliberation to his tread, as though trying not to frighten a skittish kitten.

Saya bites her lip, a sense of indignation rising, far stronger than unease. "It's not that."

"What then?"

"I just…I can't believe you attacked those men like that. Without any warning."

"Without warning? Come now, angel. I gave them ample opportunity to step back. They paid no mind to it, and they suffered the consequences. I fail to understand why it should bother you so much."

"Of course it bothers me! It bothers me that you think taking a person's life this way is okay! People can't just be disposed at whim, Solomon."

"Perhaps not. But really Saya, those men were far from innocents. They wanted to hurt you, didn't you see that?"

"Yes, I know that, but—"

"Then how can you imagine I was anything but justified in hurting _them_?"

Saya's eyes narrow. "Hurting people isn't the same as killing them, Solomon. What you did back there—"

"It was simple self-defense."

"It was homicide!"

Her words ring harshly across the marble tiles. Saya flinches, glancing away. From the corner of her eye, she sees Solomon's face. His expression is closed, contemplative. Exhaling, he slips one hand—the blade-arm—into his pocket.

When he speaks, his voice is mild. "Is that what it seemed to you, Saya? Homicide?"

She swallows, unable to answer.

"Saya, I will admit I have done things in my past I am not proud of. Things that would just be…inexcusable, especially in your eyes. But in this case, the attack was more than warranted. I had to protect you."

She closes her eyes. "I know that. I know. But—"

"I wish I could explain it to you. How it felt, seeing that man reaching out for you. Seeing him physically _touch_ you. Suddenly it seemed like everything around me just went red. In that moment, all I knew was, I could not stand to see you hurt, not in any sense. My only thought was that if anything happened to you, those men would pay the price with their lives."

And the men had paid it anyway. In a brutal defense inspired by nothing but the deepest, fiercest instincts of love.

Saya's throat tightens.

_That was all because of me._

_He did that because he didn't want to see me hurt._

_Because he loves me._

She can't explain why this makes her want to cry so hard.

Solomon's voice is closer now. "Saya, I will not apologize for what happened to those men. They were going to assault you, and in my eyes, they were completely deserving of what they got."

"That isn't your place to decide, Solomon," she breathes. "Don't you understand, what you just did was—"

"Instinctive."

"It was _wrong_!"

He sighs. "Perhaps. But then again, in your opinion, almost all our Chiropteran instincts are either unclean or wrong."

This stings, sharp as a whip. She stiffens, first in shock, then growing anger. "Killing people _is_ wrong, no matter how you might excuse it, Solomon. That has _nothing_ to do with being Chiropteran!"

He closes his eyes. "Do not begin shouting, Saya. I was simply making a point."

"I wouldn't shout at all if you'd have the decency to at least admit what you did was terrible!"

"Those men were common criminals. If they had not met their end with us, they would have found some other victim to take advantage of. A human female, alone, who would not be adept at defending herself. So taken from that perspective, I simply did the city's authorities a favor."

"You aren't in a position to know that!"

"To be honest, nor are you."

"We aren't free to just take someone else's life, Solomon. That's not acceptable under any circumstances!"

"If those men were so unaware of the risks in robbing from strangers, they would never have crossed us, Saya. But they did. And what happened to them was inevitable—an occupational hazard, if you will."

"There could have been reasons why they were stealing from us!"

Solomon shakes his head, dismissive. "Save those sociological grievances for the UN. Honestly, you should understand by now that these deaths are an accepted part of life. Nature's means of mowing the field. The strong survive, and the weak do not—this is how it is, and there are no tears shed over it."

" _No tears_!"

"Those men preyed on people less fortunate than them. Those who were weaker. And last night, they simply met with creatures on the corresponding end of the foodchain."

Saya is incredulous. "Foodchain! Solomon, we aren't animals! This isn't a jungle!"

He chuckles, light, amused. "Funny you should say that, my surly little wildcat."

"There's nothing funny about any of this! You can't make yourself the judge and jury for taking anyone's life! You have no right!"

In response, Solomon kneels by the bubbling Jacuzzi, placing a hand on her wet shoulder. His palm, warm against her slick flesh, sends an involuntary shiver through her. "It _is_ my right when it involves keeping you safe, Saya."

She freezes, pulse skittering, whether from the shift in his tone, or his physical proximity, it's hard to tell.

"I understand that you did not approve of what happened," he says softly. "But I only did it because I did not want to see you get hurt, in any worse way. I cannot bring myself to apologize for that. Not for harming anyone who would dare to raise a finger against you."

"Solomon—"

"But I will apologize for one thing, and that is for frightening you. I should have thought closer about exposing you to that sort of violence—you suffered entirely too much of it during the war. I never want you to associate with that terrible time again. If I reminded you of it, in any way, I cannot begin to tell you how sorry I am."

This confession, unexpected, knocks her off her bearings. Suddenly, she's at a loss for anything to say.

Gently, Solomon slides his arm along the front of her shoulders, drawing her to him in a half-embrace. Almost on reflex, Saya leans into him, wet fingers curling into the dry soft fabric of his shirt. The water sloshes against his sleeve's edges, soaking the material, but he seems not to notice.

His lips press to the curve of her ear, dropping in words like slow beads of honey.

"Saya, I don't know what I would do if anything were to happen to you. The idea that you might have been hurt... it is unbearable to me. That is why I made a choice to fight those men—otherwise you know I would never do anything that reprehensible. But I apologize deeply if I scared you, in any way. You understand that, don't you?"

"I…" Saya falters.

For a reason she can't explain, her eyes burn with tears. She squeezes them shut, unable to look at him. But his unstudied expression, the quiet pleading in his voice, is already branded into her memory. Suddenly, it's impossible for her to cling to righteous anger, to arguments and justifications.

Just the sound of his voice sends all her logic dissipating.

Nothing can ever be black and white where Solomon is concerned. Never once during the war, and never once now.

"Please, say you forgive me. You know I would never do something to deliberately upset you. Never once in my life. I love you so much, Saya. I can't imagine any sort of existence without you. But that is exactly _why_ I had to protect you."

"I…I know." She swallows dryly, then shifts to look at him. "I didn't thank you for defending me out there, did I?"

His eyes glimmer, catching the different shades of the skylight. "You do not need to thank me. Ensuring your safety is my privilege and duty to uphold. Just tell me that you forgive me."

"I…" She's not sure it's her place to forgive him, not sure it's even right for him to ask that question at all. But with his arms around her, the chilling memory at the fiesta is already turning vague; her anger is already abating.

Which, she is sure, says despicable things about her character. But just then, she can't make herself dwell on it too much.

If she does, she'll lose her mind for certain.

Her eyes lower to her own hand, still resting against his chest. Her fingers move slowly, languidly along his shirt, as though of their own accord.

Without meeting his gaze, she manages, "It's… it's okay, Solomon. Neither of us is hurt, so I... I guess it's all right."

He smiles, as though she has offered a benediction. Lips pressing along the slope of her throat, then to the gleaming tip of one shoulder. She shivers, feeling his encircling palm slide lower, dipping into the bubbling froth to press against her belly. Immersed in rippling water, his fingers look pale, distorted against her swimsuit; his sleeve is instantly drenched upto the elbow.

Saya manages a faint smile. "You're getting your clothes all wet."

"It doesn't bother me, angel. I'm going to be taking them off anyway."

This makes her flush, as much as the indolent purr of his voice on her skin, the sensation of sharp teeth and soft lips supplementing gooseflesh across her nape. She feels disconcertingly like a kitten in his grasp; a waterlogged kitten about to be whisked up at any moment and carried away.

Weakly, she tries to break from his hold. "Solomon, let me get out and dry off first. I… I don't want to leave puddles all over the carpet."

This makes him chuckle. "No one said we were going to head anywhere else. No one said we were leaving this spot at all."

"W-what…?"

His fingers slip beneath the straps of her wet swimsuit in response, slowly peeling it off. Even as protests arise, recriminations that the door is unlocked, that one of the hotel staff might walk in on them, that this is no suitable place to conduct a tryst of any sort, she gasps as his teeth close sharp on her earlobe, nipping, then soothing with a melting flick.

Under the surface pleasure, remorse stabs her—here she is, luxuriating in a pool, indulging herself with Solomon, when at least a half-dozen men have met their doom last night, on her behalf.

 _What's wrong with me?_ _How can I just let the issue drop so quickly_?

But even as she dwells on this, weighted down by regret and a strange reverberating fear, she's unsurprised to find her mouth already opening against his.

* * *

It's much later, in the wake of blistering repercussion, that she has the chance to weigh the whole situation out. That she is forced to see the eerie parallels between that fiesta's carnage to the Zoo's, and to acknowledge the differences between each.

_Even though I turned Haji into a monster, even though it was because of me that he attacked those people, he was only concerned for my safety._

_The fact that I'd driven him to do this didn't even seem to occur to him._

_Just like Solomon._

_But afterward, Haji shut his powers away, because he wanted to protect me from that fear. He went against his own Chiropteran nature in order to make sure I was never frightened._

How strange.

In Solomon's case, he _gave in_ to his Chiropteran nature in order to protect her.

Never even questioned it.

Thinking back on it now, Saya can't help but wonder which Chevalier's was the greater feat of courage for her sake.

Which one of them had more to lose, and which one had sacrificed more for her despite it?

 _It's very easy to succumb to instinct, to become a beast,_ she had once heard Joel remark. _But it is the hardest thing in the world, to experience the freedom of obeying those instincts, but to fight them off and still choose to remain a man._


	10. Pulsar

**CW: Violence/Gore**

* * *

_Present moment…_

* * *

She seems to be submerged underwater. Each movement is leaden, requiring twice the effort. Her eyes are murky, blurred and heavy-lidded.

It is past sunset in Okinawa's streets when she lurches out of the cab. The air feels thick and stifling, as though she is trapped under a hot blanket; her forehead is beaded in clammy sweat.

The cab pulls out of the driveway and screeches off, leaving her swaying in the middle of the dark street.

For a moment Saya simply leans by a lamppost, catching her breath. Her head spins; she seems to see everything as though through watery glass. But despite her vertigo, despite her pounding temples, she feels a wave of relief break over her.

_Thank god…_

Directly ahead, barely a few paces off, stands Omoro. Familiar and beloved, headed by those same potted plants and that canopied bamboo roof. Festive globes of paper lanterns sway over the door, rustling in humid breeze. There are no lights on—the only illumination comes from the orange square of the window.

Mechanically, Saya drags her feet across the pavement, moving for the restaurant. She still grips her carry-on in one rubbery hand; her face is white as parchment, eyes puffy, bloodshot, hair tangled in snarls. She knows how appalling she must look; the cabdriver at the airport had almost refused to let her on out of sheer terror, until she'd ended up paying twice the fare to compensate in case she stained his upholstery.

As she nears Omoro's window, she sees that the interior is completely lit up, as though for a party. Through the window, she sees people huddled everywhere. No customers, but her own family.

Kai is pacing back and forth, cellphone in one hand, the other gesturing wildly in the air. He seems to be arguing with someone, yelling at the top of his lungs. Mao leans by the bar, sipping a glass of water. Her expression is anxious, eyebrows drawn together.

David and Julia are seated on one of the tables; Julia appears to be on her own cellphone, urgently consulting someone, tapping an anxious high-heel across the tiles. David's eyes are fixed on Kai, lips moving, urging him to calm down. A cup of coffee rests untasted before him. Lewis leans on the chair beside them, signature sunglasses off. His eyes are narrowed, attentive; a layer of sweat glazes his brow.

So many years have passed since the war. And yet, for all the superficial changes, they all look exactly as they did then—like a group of people desperately working together to avert yet another disaster.

For a moment, Saya can only stand by the window, staring at them. Her family, so terribly missed, stands right in front of her—separated by a dusty pane of glass. She fights back a surge of dizziness, pressing her hand to the window. The glass is as humid as the surrounding air; her fingers leave streaks through the dust.

Unbidden, her gaze falls on a dark object resting against the bar. A cello-case.

 _Haji's_ cello-case.

She blinks, convinced she is imagining it—Haji is nowhere in sight. She peers harder, desperately searching—when a sudden hand on her arm jolts her like a current.

"Saya?"

Gasping, Saya whirls around, the world blurring with the abrupt movement. She sees him then, standing right before her. Hair tumbling black around a stricken white face, eyes wide, fixed straight on her.

"Ha-Haji…" she rasps.

In response, he reaches out and grabs her arm. The sensation of his fingers, so cool and familiar on her overheated flesh, wrenches a sob from her throat. For a moment she is almost sure this is a dream; unreality engulfs her so intensely that she cannot feel her limbs. She hears herself hyperventilating; her carry-on hits the floor with a _thud_.

Haji's grip on her arm is perplexingly tight; she wants to ask him what the matter is—but then realizes that her knees are giving out.

She seems to be sinking down into the creaking floorboards; drowning into a world of black ink. Between her legs, a torrent abruptly gushes loose; it feels as though all the blood in her body is pouring down her thighs. If not for Haji's grip on her arm, she is sure this unreal flood will sweep her away.

Haji pulls her to him immediately, setting her on the floor. His voice is low, urgent. " _Saya_!"

"I'm sorry," she breathes to him. "I'm so so sorry…"

"Saya—"

A moment later, Omoro's door bangs open—she hears loud voices and thudding footsteps.

"Saya! Holy shit— _Saya_!"

Kai, several shades beyond frantic, suddenly crouches beside her. She smells his comforting scent of sweat and shampoo and flour; his hands close tight on her shoulders. Tanned fingers, used to cooking, preparing lunchboxes and braiding little girls' hair, shaking her urgently.

"Saya—Saya, what happened! Come on, open your eyes!"

"How did she _get_ here?" Mao. High-strung and incredulous. "She looks ready to burst! Did she _walk_ all the way here?"

"Never mind that! She's bleeding all over the porch! Quick—help me get her inside!"

"Did she take a _cab_ here? Why didn't she just get dropped off at the hospital! That would've been _much_ safer!"

"The hospital's on the other side of town, goddammit! And who the hell cares how she got here—we need to get her upstairs!"

Haji's voice then, right above Saya's face. "She is losing too much blood."

"I know that! I know! We need to help her!" Kai shakes her again. "Saya—Saya, come on! Snap out of it!"

She winces, squeezing her eyes shut. Her head rests against Haji's chest, the suit's fabric cool and smooth against her hot cheek. His arms are wrapped tight around her, cradling her to him. She can sense the anxiety in everyone's voices, practically feel it thrumming through the air. But right then, she cannot bring herself to care about anything.

Suddenly, despite the boiling nausea, despite the blood, it feels as though she is right where she is supposed to be.

 _Please please don't let this be a dream,_ she thinks wildly. _I don't want to leave this place. I don't want to leave_ him _._

_Never…never again…_

"Kai—Kai, let her go!" This is David. Firm, methodical. "She needs to be examined; she needs rest."

"Never mind rest! She needs an ambulance!" Lewis' booming voice seems to come from somewhere above Saya's head.

She smells lavender and menthol cigarettes then; one of her wrists is clasped between Julia's gentle, appraising hands. "Lewis is right! Someone, call the hospital fast—her pulse is irregular, and her blood pressure is extremely low. All this blood—I think she's hemorrhaging!"

The last word evokes an explosion from Kai. " _What_?"

"All this blood-loss is abnormal! I'm telling you, David, call an ambulance! Have Red Shield prepare a room in the hospital!"

Brisk footsteps a moment later; David has left to make the call. Saya winces, feeling a gentle hand brush back her hair. Haji. His fingertips are cool on her humid skin. She shivers all over, straining into the contact with the desperation of a drowning woman tossed up on shore, sucking in deep delirious gasps of fresh air.

"Saya," she hears him breathing against her ear. "Saya, please open your eyes."

"We need to call Solomon!" Mao intrudes suddenly. "That guy was worried out of his mind on the phone!"

She stiffens, wanting to scream _No no no!_ She does not have the strength to face Solomon yet. Not now, not like this. It is too soon.

Haji seems quick to catch her tension; she feels his fingers pause mid-stroke, before resuming their mesmeric back-and-forth across her forehead.

"He's already flying out here," Kai says. "He had a feeling Saya might be coming here, same as Haji."

"Just what happened? Why'd she suddenly take off without telling him?"

"Never mind that. Right now, I just want to make sure she's gonna be okay." Kai's hands close around her clammy fingers, squeezing tight.

She feels a welling of tenderness, wanting to squeeze his hands back, but unable to find the strength. Wanting to turn and look at Haji, tell him the truth, tell him everything that happened and to beg for his forgiveness. She just wants to make everything all right between them; she doesn't care anymore about the consequences.

She just needs him to understand—needs him to know what _she_ knows.

 _My life is nothing without you…I'm so sorry I didn't realize this sooner. I'm still yours, I've never_ not _been yours. Please, please tell me you'll forgive me. I need you to tell me it's going to be all right…_

She feels Haji's lips on her brow then. A butterfly's brush, spreading a wave of inexplicable calm through her, as though her congested bleeding body suddenly bears no weight.

"Please hold on, Saya," he says. "Everything is going to be fine."

She would smile at this, if she could muster the effort for it.

 _It_ will _be fine. I know it will be..._

_You're with me again._

But a split-second later, she feels Haji go rigid. His hand slips off her brow, but the fingers of the other hand tighten on her shoulder. Beside him, Kai curses, and she hears Mao scrambling upright. Her voice is apprehensive. "Oh _shit_. Is that…Solomon?"

"How did he get here so fast?" Lewis says. "I thought he was still on the plane!"

Haji is silent, but Saya can feel a sudden wave of static humming all around his skin.

_Solomon…_

Not wanting to believe it, she is nonetheless compelled, like someone under a spell, to open her eyes. The world tilts for one moment, igniting sparks before her gaze. Blinking, she focuses on the figure striding toward her.

Blond hair catches the ambient glow of twilight; under the curls falling around his forehead, Solomon is gray-faced, hollow-eyed. If Saya were a stranger, she would say he bears the look of a man who has not slept in weeks—but Chevaliers do not need sleep, so she knows it is a far deeper malady that he is suffering from.

But of course she knows its cause.

 _Her_.

"Saya?" His familiar voice sends an involuntary chill through her body. She instinctively finds herself pressing against Haji, cleaving to him like a blind animal seeking shelter. "What's happened to her? Is she all right?"

But no one has the chance to answer.

Without warning, Saya finds herself gently deposited in Kai's arms, a split-second before Haji rockets to his feet, streaking headlong toward Solomon in a dark blur. Hands already elongating, blackening and sharpening to metallic Chiropteran claws.

Saya has just enough time to hear Kai howl, "Ah _fuck_!" and for Lewis and Julia to yell, "No wait!" as Mao lets loose a hysterical scream—before Haji stabs Solomon clear through the chest, his claw erupting from the other side in a gruesome spray of blood, splattering all around them in a scarlet pulsar.

And then the world plunges to darkness.


	11. Vertigo

**CW: Gore/Disturbing imagery.**

* * *

 

"Saya? _Saya_?"

Blood and pain and concrete.

Snippets of words, in languages she can't understand. Splintering agony and stinging hypodermics. White hospital lights and the taste of blood in a dry mouth. She can't move. Her body is torpid and sunken, like some gelatinous mass filled with liquid pain.

She's been in this situation enough times during the war, to know she's sedated, steeped in painkillers.

But, as always, the main question is…

_What happened?_

All she remembers is brilliant lights and a shrill _screech_ in her ears, the sound of monstrous impending doom. If sounds are flavors, and if flavors are objects, it tastes like fireworks have exploded in her mouth.

Her only distinct memory, lucid as a bead of oil slipped into water, is of gunshots and screams.

Bullets raging all across the air, slicing hot gashes across her skin. The whirr of helicopters, the echo of explosions. Choking Napalm; blistering flames; screams erupting amid slashes of her sword. An entire battlefield transformed into a crimson blood sea, until she is seeing, tasting, even _breathing_ it.

Vietnam.

Yes. That's where she is.

_Vietnam_

"Saya—Saya, are you all right?"

She hears a voice closeby, urgent hands shaking her. A pale face swimming in and out of her vision. Familiar…yet not the one she has expected to see. The one she always sees at these moments is comprised of sharp contrasts. Black hair a frame for white cheeks. Dark pupils a nucleus for arctic blue.

But this face is rounder, stangely younger. A soft swirl of golden curls falling around larger, sadder green eyes. A full star-shaped mouth, forming the syllables of her name, calling her insistently.

"Saya? Please, Saya, open your eyes!"

_Is he talking to… me?_

"I'm sorry…" she hears herself say. "This just can't be real…"

He doesn't understand what she means. Or perhaps he hasn't heard. All she feels is his hands tightening on her's, fingers lacing together taut as quiltwork. It should be painful, his grip, but she relishes his warmth, relishes being pinned down. Her whole body feels cool and weightless, as though dissolving into thin air.

"Don't worry, Saya. It's going to be all right. Please, just hold on."

She sails on semi-consciousness, addled by drugs and fever. Sees the man's face intermittently, hears him speaking. Not to her anymore, but to the faces swirling around her, muttering tongues she can't decipher. He speaks the same language; his voice is so light and cool as to be almost ethereal, but with a subtle authority shaping each syllable.

"…is there any further risk of preterm labor?"

Heads nod, others shake. Someone murmurs the names of what might be medications.

"…the scans… are the babies all right?"

More murmurs. She doesn't know what they are saying, only feels a pair of hands tightening on hers.

And then that familiar face, peering down at her.

"Get better soon, angel. Please. Open your eyes."

The time that elapses is indeterminate; days, or months, or even years. Her only tactile sensations are of slippery latex fingers on her skin, cold needles, machinery droning in her ears. Pain and confusion warps everything, tears making the world ripple, as though she's underwater.

And then she smells roses, feels warm sunshine on her face, and knows she is no longer at the hospital.

Disoriented, Saya's eyes flutter open, taking a moment to focus. The room she is in is bright with sunlight, carpeted with red flowers. Their scent, sweet and fresh at first, quickly becomes cloying, oppressive. She lies on a large bed, covered in downy sheets. The mattress beneath absorbs her like a well of liquid, making every movement sluggish.

She swallows, throat so parched her tongue feels glued to her mouth.

_Where am I…?_

Abruptly, a pale hand appears, bearing a glass full of blood. A gentle arm slides around her back and shoulders, propping her up and pressing the glass' cool rim to her lips. Rudimentary needs are overwhelming; Saya immediately swallows the blood, raising leaden fingers to lift the glass higher.

The blood is bliss, sweet and warm. She gulps and gulps and gulps, her thirst intense—but the hand abruptly draws the glass away, setting it on the adjacent nightstand.

"Easy. Not too much immediately," a familiar male voice murmurs.

She understands why as she begins to choke from swallowing too fast. A terrific bolt of pain shoots to her head. She lurches upright, but the hand tightens on her shoulders, firm and protective, pressing her back.

"Saya, please do not move so quickly. You're heavily medicated and you have suffered a mild concussion. Please, just lie back and relax."

Saya grits her teeth, forcing back the upsurge of pain. When she has finally gained some control over the discomfort, she lifts her head to blearily regard the speaker.

"S-Solomon?"

He smiles, but there is a sliver of anxiety in his eyes. "Are you strong enough to talk? Do you want to sleep more?"

She blinks, shaking her head no.

He breathes out in a low sigh. His lips press to her forehead, feverish across her dry skin. Saya almost feels the gratitude pouring off him. "I'm glad you're awake, Saya. I was worried."

Even as she battens on this gratifying closeness, pressing against him on instinct, she raises confused eyes to his. "Solomon… what happened?"

He doesn't answer. With the back of his hand, he gently wipes off the dribble of blood on her chin. He wears a white shirt, untucked and unbuttoned at the top; his hair sticks up in unruly tendrils as through he's been running his hands through it. His gaze is more heavy-lidded than usual; she feels a subtle tremor racing across the warm fingers on her shoulder.

"What happened?" she repeats.

Solomon exhales. "You nearly got crushed by a car, is what. Saya, I don't understand what you were doing out there by yourself."

"Wh-what?"

"At the market. You ran down the street and leapt right in the middle of moving traffic."

"I did… what?" She struggles to fill in the void in her memory.

She can still recall that deafening roar of engines, the blinding lights and the shrill _screee_ whose resonance makes her flesh crawl—

Solomon's voice cuts in, this time with a harsher note: "I specifically warned you not to head out alone, didn't I? What were you thinking, running out there by yourself? It was extremely reckless of you."

"Reckless?"

"Gallivanting out in that crowded street without telling anyone. You had me worried sick. You cannot just take off whenever you feel like it, Saya—you are not just responsible for yourself anymore. You have your pregnancy to take into account. And my own feelings on the matter; a little consideration wouldn't hurt. Just what you were doing out there?"

"What I was…doing?" She blinks, fighting to remember. The memory comes back to her in bits and pieces, a disjointed sequence of fetters.

…Water drumming on her, hot and searing as lava. Sluicing down her back, splattering her hair around her face and neck. She breathes deeply on the steam, tipping her face up to the spray.

The glass shower-stall is painted with exquisite black swans, swirls of silver and golden etchings. Murky fog wreathes the air; the rhythmic beat of water is the only sound in the brilliant bathroom. Solomon has left fifteen minutes ago, called away for a meeting with colleagues; she is alone at their hotel suite in Ho Chi Minh City.

Her husband wants her to stay inside—he warns her about the oppressive humidity of the outside streets, the inferno of crime and pollution he'd rather see her avoid. Somewhat mulish at being ordered to stay indoors like a child, Saya reluctantly concedes, with the guarantee that he will take her out as soon as his business is concluded.

Ever since the carnage in Spain, where Solomon hacked those men to shreds, her nerves have been stretched taut, vibrating on edge. Their brief stop-over at Vietnam hasn't exactly helped matters. It was Solomon's idea to come here. He has a must-attend conference that can't be missed, and he has cajoled and coaxed her into accompanying him here for a three-day stay.

Saya doesn't want to be here—this region holds nothing but hideous reminders for her.

Vietnam is the centerfold of her greatest massacre, after all. Vietnam is where she first underwent that tremendous psychological pressure that squashed all her memories flat. Where she first drove Phantom out of his mind by cutting off his hand—first introduced Haji to the bitterness and bloodshed promised to him if he stayed with her any further.

And when Solomon is gone, abandoning her in the massive suite with only pounding water to fill her ears, it's all she thinks about.

Which is precisely when her jitters begin.

She can't explain what triggers them, except that her heart begins beating too loudly. A harsh palpable throb, rattling in her temples, her throat. It rises higher than the tempo of her breathing, louder than the drumming water.

The room suddenly seems to be closing in on her, the walls, the ceiling, all looming nearer and nearer, trying to box her in, crush her to pulp.

She remembers the water, thumping loud in the stall—except the sound suddenly distorts, turning to the whirr of helicopter rotors.

Searing red flashes across her eyes. She sees the grotesque shadow of a chopper swooping past a gap in the palmtrees. The steamy air of the shower suddenly presses on her, turning to scorching flame and acrid smoke. A rictus of screams fills her ears, the roar of fire and Chiropterans, the stench of blood and hatred and sheer scintillating terror.

And through it all, a voice, garbled and indistinct, screaming her name:

_Saya…!_

"Saya!" Solomon's voice yanks her back to the present.

She flinches, staring at him. "Wh-what?"

"Saya, just what were you doing out there? Why did you leave the hotel room?"

She swallows dryly, shaking her head. "I…I don't know."

"I had to leave in the middle of the meeting, because you weren't answering the phone to our room, and I was concerned something might have happened to you. It is extremely fortunate that I came back in time—otherwise you might have been worse off. Do you know, if the car hit you at a closer angle, it might have snapped your neck? Done something terrible to the babies? Just what were you thinking, heading out there by yourself?"

"The babies?" The word rings like a coin clamoring in a metal cup. A bolt of fear shoots through her. "Ohgod—what happened to the babies? Solomon, what did—?"

His palm across her belly, reassuring, restraining. "You don't have to worry. They are all right. You're well into your first trimester, and you went into preterm labor about twenty minutes after you were hit. Fortunately we got you to the hospital on time, and the doctors averted it with the proper medication. They carried out ultrasounds and monitored the babies, but there seemed to be no change in the fetal patterns."

"I…I see." Her hands move on reflex to her belly, smoothing it gingerly as though handling broken glass. She doesn't know what she'd do if anything terrible were to happen to her unborn children.

A moment later, Solomon's own hand covers hers, fingers twining tight. "You are not in any immediate danger, but all the same I want you to stay vigilant these next few days. If you have the slightest cramps or discomfort, or if there are any signs of bleeding, tell me immediately."

She nods mutely, staring down at their interlaced hands. Her fingers look small and strangely brittle underneath his, wispy enough to dissolve like spun sugar against his palms.

"How…how long was I out?" she asks.

"Forty-eight hours. They wanted to keep you longer at the hospital, but in at least a day, all your bruises had healed, so it was imperative that we leave as soon as all the necessary tests were conducted. I wanted to avoid the staff asking too many questions."

"You… could have called Dr. Julia over. Or told Kai."

Solomon shakes his head. "And have them nearly as worried about you as I was? Especially while I was unsure of your condition? No. I have not spoken to your family about this yet—honestly, I could not bring myself to leave your side long enough to call them up. You really gave me a fright, Saya. What were you doing out there in the first place?"

"I…" She falters, squeezing her eyes shut. "I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

" _I don't know_." His expression makes her conscious of her sharp tone. Teeth gritted, she forces her voice down. "I can't explain it. I just couldn't stay in the hotel room. I just… I had to get out."

"Had to get out? Why? What was wrong with you?"

"I'm not sure, all right? It was all so strange. You'd left the hotel, and… I was in the shower. Everything was fine, but then—" She swallows. "I don't know what happened. Suddenly it felt like I couldn't breathe. I kept… seeing so many faces. I kept remembering."

"Remembering what?"

"I—" She breaks off; the influx of memory harsh and immediate.

… Howling women and children, shredded under her blade. The curses of soldiers, their sweat and terror sharp in her nose. Bellowing chiropterans, fangs oozing ropes of blood. Fire, fear, all around her, a swelling symphony of death. A million emotions raging: bliss, hatred, horror, remorse, each one eternal in its clarity.

She's still standing in the shower, but the hot water suddenly feels like a cascade of blood. Splattering her skin, drenching her in red, filling her eyes and nose. Her flesh crawls, prickling as though a million ants race across the surface.

Unnerved, Saya wrenches the faucet off and grabs a towel. Stumbling across slippery tile, she catches a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror. Long hair hanging drenched around her body, eyes wide pinpricks in a bloodless face. In a chilling flash, a red-smeared hollow-eyed killer superimposes in place, set against a background of bullets and smoke.

_Ohgod. Ohgod._

She jerks wildly into her clothes, bursting dripping-haired into the bedroom—where a sudden unfamiliar voice hits her ears, inciting a scream that rebounds through the room like a siren.

She remembers hitting out blindly, sending a steel tray flying into the air, clattering across the floor. Remembers a crisp black uniform, a pair of uncertain hands reaching for her, a voice stammering apologies, saying things she doesn't understand.

All that is superseded by a million eyes, dark and bottomless, frozen on her in a perpetual glare.

She feels those eyes boring into her as she relives her Vietnam spree, as she hacks and slashes everything to bits. Limbs and torsos littering the bloody ground. Fire and screams engulfing her, body and sensorium alike.

Her throat tightens until it is impossible to see or _breathe_ , until her only thought, blind and crazed, is to get out of the room, go anywhere but just _get away_.

The next thing she remembers is being outside the hotel, immersed in traffic and blinding sunshine. But even there, sucking on the warm sticky air, the flashbacks are inexorable, razor shiruken slashing at her mind, ripping her self-control to shreds.

Desperate for escape, she breaks into a run. Feet pounding hard on cement, breath leaving her in shredded separate gasps. A barrage of memories assaults her, inescapable, _exploding_ behind her eyes with an intensity beyond endurance. She can't feel her arms or legs, can't control her movements—stumbling through the market, she dodges crowing vendors and laden carts with the same blindness as her distant field-trip to Hanoi, heart slamming in cannon-ball jolts against her ribs.

And that is precisely when a voice shouts her name—" _Saya_!"—and she whirls to see Solomon calling out to her, surprisingly pale and lucid amid the heaving crowd…

Just before something _massive_ plows her right off the road, and into a reverberant ocean of blackness.

"Saya? Oh no. Saya, please. Don't start crying."

She's shaking now, hands pressed wet and aching to her face, muffling the sobs that pour out.

Gently, Solomon takes her wrists, prying her hands from her face. "Saya, please. I didn't mean to be harsh with you. But you frightened me so much. And I've already almost lost you enough times. Please, angel. Don't be upset with me."

She shakes her head, forcing the tears back. "It—it's not that, Solomon. Really. I just—"

He draws her closer, tucking her head under his chin. "Please, tell me what's bothering you? I know you did not want to come to Vietnam. All the things you had to see and do in the war; the weight would be too much for anyone. But I wish you'd at least talk to me about it—I only want to help you. I do not want to see you suffer."

She presses her cheek to his chest, seeking solace from the mental havoc in his closeness and warmth. She can't explain where all her fortitude has dissolved to—she can't remember being such a dithering pile of nerves, even during her terrifying spell of amnesia.

The pregnancy, the lifted weight of the war, this new unfamiliar life that's suddenly been granted to her—sometimes it is all too much; almost too overwhelming to handle.

"Angel, please. Tell me what's wrong? What frightened you so much you just left the hotel? I wish you would tell me. I can never understand what sets you off this way."

She can feel the anxiety vibrating through his voice. Peering up at his face, she sees the marks of strain everywhere, across his eyes, on the lines of his mouth. Strange. She recalls, in her brief flashes at the hospital, how perfectly poised he was in front of the doctors. Concerned, always, but so indelibly calm.

She knows that it is only with her that he allows himself this luxury of revelation. Only with her that he is free to pour out all his stymied fear and concern, without pretense or aplomb. In face of his stark anguish, a wave of sympathy overcomes her.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers. "I didn't mean to worry you so much."

He gathers her closer. "It doesn't matter, Saya. I'm just glad you're all right."

"Are you…going to tell Kai and the others about this now?"

"If that is what you wish. Although it might be best not to. Since we are sure you're unharmed, there would not be any point, except causing an unnecessary fuss. For the time being, I just want you to get some rest."

She knows he has a point. Contacting her family about this news, especially when no lasting harm has come of it, would only create unwanted upheaval. Separated by countries and continents, poor Kai would just overreact and Mao's imagination would run wild; the intention wouldn't be worth the turmoil.

"I…all right," she murmurs.

In reply, Solomon lowers his mouth to hers, his kiss infusing her with the giddy hunger of relief. She responds eagerly, grateful for a chance to shut off her mind, immerse herself in this salutary physical sensation. He starts to withdraw, but her fingers tangle in his hair, drawing him closer to renew the contact.

It's a long moment before he can bring himself to pull back. Smoothing her hair, he regards her fondly, but with a palpable longing.

"Give yourself some time to recover first," he murmurs. "The sooner you're well again, the sooner we can pick up where we left off. You know I can't bear spending as much as a night away from you."

She finds herself smiling in turn. "So that's all you missed about me?"

He gives her a wry look. "Of course it is. In fact, if it were upto me, I'd duct-tape your mouth and keep you permanently sedated so I'd at least have a few minutes' peace of mind. You?"

"Mm, I can't stand you either. I wish I'd stayed unconscious longer."

Chuckling, Solomon puts his hands in her hair, stroking it back. Kisses her closed eyelids and flushed cheeks. "God, Saya. It's really gotten so that I can't do without you in any sense, even for a second. But you gave me such a scare with this stunt of yours. Please promise you won't do it again?"

She isn't sure why his tone makes her feel so guilty, as if she's played some sort of childish prank on him, deliberately disrupting his peace of mind rather than suffering a near-breakdown of her own. But his hand is stroking her forehead, soothing, hypnotic, and she can't imagine putting him, or herself, through any further suffering.

Can't imagine anything terrible happening in this moment at all.

"All right. I promise, Solomon."

"Good." He kisses her again, then rises from the bed. "In light of this incident, I took the liberty of making some arrangements for you."

"Arrangements?"

"Yes. It's clear you are in a sadly fragile state of mind at the moment. And I love you too much to risk anything happening to you. For the time being, I would prefer it if you did not go out alone. I want to keep an eye on you, in case this doesn't happen again."

She blinks, "Not... go out alone?"

"Not in my absence, in any case. Anywhere you want to go, please just let me know, and I'll accompany you. At least this way, should you suffer one of your…episodes again, I will be closeby to intervene." Reaching out, he touches her chin. "However, I'm aware that I cannot always remain at your side; so I have arranged for you to be escorted to town by a chauffeur."

"A… chauffeur?"

"That's right. A bodyguard. Someone to accompany you wherever you need to go, whenever I am not present."

"Accompany me? But Solomon, I really don't think this is necessary…"

He frowns faintly. "Would you rather I find you on the streets again, narrowly avoiding speeding traffic?"

"Well, no, but—"

"Than I fail to see the problem. Please, you need to trust me on this, Saya. I only want what is best for you. I do not want to see you getting hurt again."

"Solomon, I don't know what happened to me at the hotel—but I think you might be taking it a little too far. I appreciate your concern, but… I don't need a chauffeur. I'll be fine on my own."

"Of course. Just as you were 'fine' when that car nearly rammed you off the road?"

She feels a surge of anger. "Solomon, please stop talking to me like I'm a child. I'll admit the accident was a close call, but that doesn't mean it'll happen again. I can take care of myself; I've been doing it for years now."

"Have you forgotten that you weren't carrying children back then? You cannot put not only your life at risk, but theirs too. I will not allow that to happen. Putting your own whims before the babies would just be extremely childish and selfish of you."

"I am not being selfish—how can you say such a thing? Of course I care about the babies, but that has nothing to do with needing a bodyguard!"

He shakes his head. "If you think having a bodyguard has nothing to do with protecting our babies, it tells me precisely how disconnected you are from considering their well-being at all."

Her eyes widen, infuriated that he would even suggest such a thing. "What? How _dare_ you! What makes you think I don't care about our daughters—of course I care about them! I'm the one who's carrying them!"

"Then you ought to behave accordingly, Saya."

"You make it sound like I'll be taking deadly risks by going out—like I'll be out there fighting Chiropterans! It isn't the same thing!"

"Saya, no one can irrefutably deny that you are used to a high-risk lifestyle—the kind you used to live during the war. I have fought both with you, and beside you—I've seen it clearly. The rush of the battle, the high you get off adrenaline, all that is still very much a part of your nature. But I cannot allow that reckless side of you to endanger both your welfare and that of our daughters."

"What gives you the right to suggest I'm endangering their welfare?"

"The fact that you flat out refuse to compromise, and cannot even sacrifice a little bit of your freedom, if only for the sake of ensuring their safety."

She bolts upright angrily, "Solomon, _stop_ twisting my words! I'm not insensible of the risks—to _any_ of them—but that doesn't mean I have to be carted around like an invalid!"

Solomon opens his mouth to shout, but visibly controls himself. In a low even voice, he says, "Why are you always so intent on defying me, Saya? If you care about me even a little, you'll do as I ask, even if it's just this once. I will not have you put our children at risk."

"Why are you so convinced I'll be putting them at risk?"

"Because you just did two days ago, is why. And I do not want it happening again. That is one thing I absolutely have to enforce on you as your husband."

"But why can't I just—" A sudden wave of nausea cuts her short. Red spots explode before her eyes. She retches and doubles over, gritting her teeth. There's a stabbing ache in her temples, all across her body.

"Saya?" Solomon's icy expression melts away. He's at her side in an eyeblink, gentle hands on her shoulder. "Angel, what is it? What's the matter?"

"I don't know. I—" She swallows, suppressing bile. "I feel… sick. My head hurts."

He presses a hand to her seething brow. "The medication they gave for your head trauma is wearing off. Please. Just lie back. I'll give you something to tide it over until you're better."

She flails for him blindly. "W-wait! Where are you going?"

"Just to the next room. I'll prepare a hypodermic, something to put you back to sleep. Then I'll see to the other arrangements."

"I just _told_ you I didn't want a chauffeur!"

"In this frame of mind, I cannot take anything you say seriously. Please, Saya, I beg you not to strain yourself this way; you need to rest."

" _I need you to listen to me_!"

She tries to sit up again. But the world tilts and ripples in a lurid skirl of colors. The smell of all the roses is too strong, too suffocating—she feels bile welling in her throat. Although her first impulse was to shout at Solomon, now she finds herself reaching wildly for his hand, floundering for any sign of comfort amid this turmoil.

"Wh-what's wrong with me?" she rasps. "What's happening?"

He squeezes her hand in both his own. "Please, Saya. Just calm down. You're coming down from the medication. I will give you something to stop the pain; you don't need to worry."

He is gone before she can muster a response, leaving her lying there in a pulsating mass of vertigo.

Saya gnashes her teeth, curling up tightly under the sheets. She has no clue where Solomon has vanished to; lifting her head and calling for him feels like too monumental an effort. Instead, she squeezes her eyes shut, trying to force back each jagged implosion of pain. Her body feels too hot, sticky against the oppressive sheets; clawing through her mind, she cannot find any memory or image that might serve as a distraction from her discomfort.

She wishes she were wearing Haji's bloodstone; the hard icy disk would have felt delicious against her sweaty skin.

_Haji..._

_Haji._

Dizzy sleep comes only when she recalls shifting spots of sunlight between tree branches, the rough wooden texture of a bench beneath her skull, and the comforting weight of a cold bandaged hand on her humid brow.

_Your hand's cold._

_It feels good_


	12. Spiral

Imagining Saya at this moment is an utter blasphemy.

Long nails rake haphazard across his hair. Choking gasps fan moist against his ear. He smells alcohol and perfume and the hot tang of sweat. Heartbeat palpable, a livid unceasing pulsation. The limbs he grips are brittle—one unexpected move, and he'd shatter them in two.

He wishes someone would reach out and shatter _him_ in two instead.

That way, he'll never have to live with the memory of what he's doing tonight.

Unfamiliar frenzied hands claw at him. Pink nails leave irritant streaks on his skin. Unfamiliar eyes are squeezed shut, immersed within their own sphere of fantasy. Lipstick-flecked teeth gritted against an unknown name he can only assume belongs to an old lover.

Someone—another man—this woman wishes to superimpose in his place right now.

He struggles for a name to curl around his own tongue in turn. A name that will complete this two-quotient tryst of motorized movement, unfeeling skin on skin. But try as he might, he can't bring himself to say it. Can't bring himself to hiss that single burning name between the rough connecting clack of teeth and tongue, to visualize another body overlaying the one grinding so erratically against him now.

Averting his face, he bites his tongue instead, hard enough to draw blood. Closes his eyes and presses his forehead to the grimy brick wall.

Imagining Saya at this moment is an utter blasphemy.

The alleyway is dark, fetid, no venue to conduct such a rendezvous. What he's doing here goes against every fiber of his nature—against everything he's devoted his entire life to believing or _being_. It is not acceptable, not _right_. He should not be here—the very idea that he _is_ says something heinous about him.

The woman pressed between him and the wall isn't a streetwalker. Just an ordinary person, out for drinks, for a night of distraction and release.

No different from himself.

He doesn't remember how he found himself here with her. What initiated their conversation, what syllables and gestures led them to this point. Has only hazy recollections of dark waterfalling hair and elfin limbs perched upon a barstool. Pink lips curling over the straw of a too-sweet drink, brown mascara-lined eyes cutting across the cigarette smog to his face.

The resemblance is uncanny, but this isn't Saya.

And even if he closes his eyes and imagines with all his might, she'll never be.

This is merely robotic diversion—merely the culmination of too many nights spent alone, too many hours spent grieving. Unable to sleep, unable to forget, unable to betray the memory of the woman who, even after severing his soul with the same blade-sharp velocity she once sliced his hand, still haunts the air he breathes even now.

 _Especially_ now.

In the era he was raised, virginity, while a highly-prized concept in women, was a relatively lax rule with men, as all such rules often are. Several gentlemen, of affluent social status, led an accepted life of dissipation. Visited courtesans, kept lorettes. The entire matter was an established routine; even expected.

To those with time to spare and money to waste, the doors to all debauchery were wide open.

Back at the Zoo, Saya was always too innocent, as she often was, to understand precisely why Joel made infrequent sojourns to Paris every month. Certainly not to visit the Louvre, or to sip absinthe under gaslight, as Haji knew. Joel would always return from those journeys looking lighter, calmer. Weighed down only by jewels and dresses for Saya, by books and intricate knives for Haji. Heaping her with fatherly attentions, while avoiding the earnest eyes of her young companion.

Joel always said Haji understood far more than he let on.

Haji was never brought to such trips, of course. His purpose at the Zoo was to impregnate Saya—a purpose that would be quite contradictory if he was lavishing those essential energies on other women.

Considering why he was shipped to the Zoo at all, Saya often remarked how surprising it was that he'd turned out as well as he did.

He wonders what Saya would say, if she saw him now.

The climax is desultory, fleeting, just a pinprick of light within a haze of dissolution. He grits his teeth, shudders, and mechanically keeps on moving until he feels the unfamiliar form against him stiffen and quake in turn. Red lips graze his throat, emitting a raggedy half-stifled huff.

Not a name this time, but a curse.

Appropriate enough.

He remains standing where he is, long after the girl straightens her clothes and wipes her lipstick-smeared mouth. Touching up her make-up in a compact mirror, awkward, self-conscious. Lighting a cigarette, blue flame feeding a glowing orange stub.

Small unfamiliar hands press his palm, handing a second cigarette, a scrap with a phone-number.

He almost wants to press them back. He will not be using either of them.

But he can't make himself move.

The girl shuffles out of the alley without a word, and he doesn't offer her a backward glance. Two strangers, parting as strangers are supposed to.

Long after she leaves, Haji keeps his gaze pinned to the wall. Studying the broken glass across the floor, bright in the second-hand glow of neon signs and streetlamps.

He feels just like that glass. Cold and brittle.

He still tastes the unfamiliar woman's mouth on his; still smells her on his flesh. The guilt and nausea washing over him is unreal; he has the sudden overwhelming urge to take a bath. Just drown himself in boiling water, scrub and scrub until his skin peels off, until he's erased every mark or stain of this night from his body.

The mental stain is another matter.

There's none to begin with.

This whole encounter feels as incidental as stepping over a muddy puddle of water; as trivial as accidentally spilling tea on his suit. If he imagined the experience would make him feel better, brighten the dull tints of the world he exists in, he is abysmally mistaken.

He was bereft and yearning for Saya when he went in. He's bereft and yearning for Saya when he comes out.

Imagining Saya at this moment is an utter blasphemy.

Haji thinks back, briefly, to the only other time he was laid so low as to succumb to this, to the only time when he experienced such desolation.

Vietnam.

That was the night when Saya, after decades of war and bloodshed, went berserk on that battlefield. Chopping everything in her path, uncaring of innocents or foes, uncaring even of those who dedicated their entire lives to serving her. Fuelled by her own rage, but ignited by Haji's blood, she'd transformed into the very thing she had never wanted to be.

And Haji had blamed himself for catalyzing the disaster.

If Red Shield never injected his blood into her, the whole situation could've been prevented. Saya would never have awoken to greet the world with such wrath in her eyes.

But decades have passed since that night. And Haji has healed enough to acknowledge that neither he, nor Saya, were truly to blame for it. It was simply an unfortunate meandering of Fate. Something beyond their hands or understanding.

After that night, he'd believed everything was over for him… but it was only later that he'd realized how wrong he was.

Nothing was over at all.

How peculiar, Haji muses, that he can recall that hysterical blazing night of decades past—but his mind still shies from what occurred just fifteen minutes prior. The merest reminder makes him recoil, head to toe, as though he's been rolling through sewage.

His eyes snap shut. He fights burning bile.

_I'm sorry, Saya..._

_I'm so so sorry..._

Suddenly, he wants to sink into the floor, head in his hands, and curdle to ash.

But can't.

Because, just as after that carnage in Vietnam, he can't deny the bond he still shares with Saya. Can't deny everything she has ever embodied in his eyes, and still does.

Life. Strength. Determination.

Hope.

This despair he's fallen into since her departure, this depravity of self-indulgence, is a blight to her memory.

Imagining Saya at this moment _is_ an utter blasphemy—and he refuses to prolong it even a moment further.

Mechanically, Haji lets his hand fall open, the unlit cigarette and paper-scrap fluttering to the ground. The Hong Kong air suddenly feels too dank—this city, which he retreated into with the same blindness of a child seeking shelter, suddenly feels like a noose around his throat.

He needs to shake this weight off. Go from here.

He has a brief memory of hot sunlight, glowing architecture and suntanned faces. Italy. He ought to head to Italy. Perhaps he can find some solace there; something more meaningful to keep himself occupied. He has received word of a classical music festival happening there—perhaps he ought to see what it is about.

Anything, _anything_ at all, to save him from this murk he is sinking into.

It's high time he stood beneath an open sky without the burden of aimlessness to weigh him down.

In light of everything Saya means to him, it is the least he can do for her.

* * *

Solomon slices neatly into orange with his knife. The aroma of citrus perfumes the air.

The fruit's flesh is scarlet, the rind so dark that it reminds Saya of spilt blood. Seated at a tense distance from him, she watches him cut the fruit into floral sections, easy and one-handed, unlooping the peel in a spiral.

"It's a Sicilian orange," he explains, when he sees her looking. "The fruit is famous for its red tints. Mostly they're used in marmalades."

The air between them has been fraught before this. His unexpected remark feels like a gulp of air.

Saya takes it as leeway to murmur: "I… thought it was an apple."

"Believe me, it is not."

He holds out a slice to her, the chunk so dark it seems nearly black. It is a casual gesture, but his appraising gaze makes it seem as though he offers a peace laurel.

Saya opens her mouth, biting in. The effusive flavor explodes on her tongue; sweeter, tangier than an ordinary orange, sliding down her throat with the liquidness of wine.

"How is it?" Solomon asks.

Chewing, Saya licks her lips. "Um… it tastes sort of like raspberries."

"Does it?"

A bead of red dots the corner of her mouth; Solomon leans close, kissing it off. Saya drops her gaze, face as red as the orange. At the same time, a sharp relief inflates her lungs.

She was right. It _was_ a peace laurel.

Their rooftop garden is bathed in milky sunlight. By its glow, she and Solomon sit together on a lacquered white table, the remnants of breakfast spread out between them. Empty cups of tea and chocolate, a few hunks of baguettes, jars of jam and honey.

Solomon's usual wineglass of blood rests nearby—he habitually downs one in the morning, one in the evening, casual as a coffee cup.

Saya wonders where the blood comes from. Every suite they book has a steady supply waiting in the refrigerators. Are there companies that supply blood without questioning its purpose? Is there a go-between to carry out these transactions for the buyer and seller?

It isn't something she ever thought about. But being with Solomon exposes her to unconsidered dimensions of life. One that blends the human element with Chiropteran—but where the latter is treated as offhandedly as the former.

It still unsettles Saya to see Solomon drinking blood while there are servants around them, or sipping it from a glass while they have visitors. Personally, she still takes her blood through a transfusion drip, despite Solomon's insistence that she's free to consume it directly like him.

He can't understand what the harm is. It's better than gnawing at someone's throat for it, in any case.

But for Saya, who's lived among humans all her life, spent a greater part of it spurning her own lineage, blood can't be viewed as something so commonplace to be downed in a glass over the morning paper. She did that constantly during her years at the Zoo—unwittingly took servants' blood as part of her daily ' _medicine'_.

When she'd learnt the truth later, self-disgust repelled her off the practice for good.

"Fish and chickens are living things too," Solomon says suddenly, in a tone of tranquil amusement. "Excluding the diatribes of vegetarian Nazis, are the people who eat them butchers, or simply part of the chain of life?"

"W-what?"

"It amazes me how you're still embarrassed by drinking blood."

"How do you know what I was—"

"You always avoid looking at my morning glass. And you should see what you've done to the orange."

Dazed, Saya stares at her hand. The orange slice has been crushed to gelatinous pulp. Sticky syrup streams down her wrist, dripping onto the table.

Flinching, Saya scrabbles for the tissue box. "Oh—I'm sorry. I had no idea what I was doing!"

Chuckling, Solomon snares her wrist. "Never mind that, Saya. Someone will clean this up later. Although I wish you'd pay more attention to what you are doing, sometimes. Your head can really be in the clouds."

Annoyed, Saya tries to tug away. "I just... I can't understand why you have to drink blood in front of anyone that way. Wh-what if someone notices what it is?"

Solomon huffs disdainfully. "Humans never notice anything around them, Saya. And honestly, why must we apologize or shrink in shame for our natural victuals?"

"But... if someone gets suspicious, then—"

"Nothing is suspicious as long as it is done out in the open. You should know that by now." Done with the discussion, Solomon takes a tissue, carefully dabbing off the red smears from her fingers.

After a pause, his leans in, pressing a compulsive kiss to her palm.

Startled, Saya bites her lip. Solomon's tendency to cycle so quickly from affection to assertion, and vice versa, always knocks her off-balance. His thumb circles slowly on the skin of her wrist. It makes her conscious, not of the movement, but how her own flesh vibrates in its wake.

Her eyes meet his across the table. Wary, then softening.

God, it's been so long, _so long_ since...

As if stuck by the same thought, Solomon gives himself a mental shake, releasing her and returning his eyes to the newspaper. Sighing, Saya stares at her plate. But she can't pretend not to feel him studying her from the corner of his eye.

Silence descends again, either the first glimmer of reconciliation, or a calm before a storm. She waits until Solomon finishes flipping through his newspaper cover by cover, before she asks the now-habitual question:

"I can go out alone today, right?"

A tut-tutting noise.

"But why not? I feel better. Honest!"

"Saya, you have barely recovered from that unfortunate accident. I cannot risk you heading out alone so soon—especially not in your condition. We have discussed this before."

"But I thought the only reason we decided to come to Italy was so that I'd be able to get out more!"

"We came here only because the weather would be better suited for your health, Saya. Not to indulge your reckless whims. You have been sick and in poor spirits ever since that ordeal at Vietnam."

"Because you've been keeping me indoors all the time! I just don't understand why I still can't go out by myself!"

Solomon's voice is dismissive. "It is too crowded in this city. And the crime rate is no laughing matter."

"I've survived a war and fought Chiropterans night and day—pickpockets don't frighten me!"

"It is not the pickpockets I am concerned about." He reaches for an apple from the brimming fruit platter, flicking his pocketknife open. "Besides, we had an agreement, did we not? That you would slow down for the sake of the babies. Do not be childish and hypocritical and go back on your word now."

"I _never_ gave you any word on that, Solomon! You hired a bodyguard without telling me, and demanded flat-out that he shadow me everywhere I go. It's completely frustrating; he doesn't listen to a word I say, he gives orders to other people over my head, and anytime I'm in a crowded place, I can literally feel him breathing down my neck!"

"It is his job to watch over you. That's what a bodyguard does."

Saya bites back a sharp retort. She _knows_ what a bodyguard does. During the war, she was fortunate enough to know the best.

"Protection's one thing, Solomon, but I still need a little privacy—I need to be able to breathe. You've got me so smothered in here; no normal person would be able to stand it! Why can't you just give me a little space?"

"Saya, I have told you before. Do not take the slightest leeway to begin shouting." Solomon's tone is cool, as though she's a child to whom an effort must be made at tolerance. "I am not smothering you, and I give you limitless amounts of space. You have the entire suite at your disposal. You're allowed to visit the shops downstairs as long as you take the maid with you. I fail to understand why you have to disagree with me, simply out of sheer perversity. I am only looking out for your safety."

"You're treating me like a canary in a cage!"

"Enough with your histrionics, Saya. I have already told you you're not heading out alone. No means no." He places the sliced apple on her plate. "Here, eat this. You're always irritable when you haven't eaten."

"Will you stop changing the subject!"

"Saya, please stop behaving like a spoilt child. Just do what you are told, if only for this once."

"I'm _not_ behaving like a child—you just insist on _treating_ me like one! And I'm not hungry, I—" Her stomach's rumbling muffles her words.

Saya flushes, self-consciously crossing her arms.

In moments like these, she loathes her body's own quickness to override self-restraint. But she's frustrated too, by the insufferable scrutiny Solomon is subjecting her to these days, as though the slightest mishap will rip her out of existence.

Since Vietnam, he's been keeping her under surveillance every minute—monitoring the slightest differences in her temperature, the faintest splotches on her skin; to questioning her every activity, her slightest move. What she ate, how she slept, what she did, where she went. Too soon, too late, how much, not enough—until she's ready to _scream_.

Indignant at being hounded by the hour, Saya finds herself embroiled in constant arguments with him. It's infuriating that he never listens to a word she says, makes decisions without bothering to ask her opinion, let alone _informing_ her first, then expects her to abide by his will without question.

As though he's _entitled_ to make rules for her—while it is her place to submit to him in silence.

Talking back to him is futile. Each time, he whirls everything around, so _she_ seems forever the one at fault. If she's ever too drained after a spat between them, it's _her_ fault for being so disobedient to begin with, not biting her tongue as she's expected to. If she's ever too ill to entertain any of his visiting colleagues, their simpering wives, it's _her_ fault for being so careless in the first place, not eating or sleeping right as he has ordered to.

Nothing satisfies him. He dictates the way she wears her clothes, the food she puts in her mouth, how she addresses the servants. She'd go so far as to say he'd control the way she _breathes_ , if it suited him.

Worse, she has little energy to resist his tactics. Since Vietnam, her pregnancy has unexpectedly caught up with her. She's listless from dawn to sunset, weepy at every turn. Her torpor confines her almost exclusively indoors, where Solomon decrees she stay all along.

Sleep offers no respite either. Her dreams are fitful, full of blood and tears. Often, she thrashes awake from nightmares with screams bubbling up her throat, fighting the urge to call Solomon.

They are no longer sharing the same bed. But nor is it the venue for any recent lovemaking. Solomon seems apprehensive about exerting her in that sense.

He's keeping her at a cautious distance these few weeks. During the day, he often leaves on business meetings, although he calls to check on her every hour. By night, when she retires to bed, he presses no more than a dutiful goodnight-kiss to her forehead, spending his time shut up in his en suite office, as if to put as much space between them as possible.

Saya wonders whom he doesn't trust in this matter. Her, or himself?

So unlike Haji. Comfort and self-restraint, for her Chevalier, went hand-in-hand. Haji was always content to be with her, in her bed, without subjecting her to the pressures of an inevitable consummation.

Raised in an era of strict decorum, Saya had wanted her and Haji to wait for that final step—she hadn't felt quite ready to take the plunge. Haji had accepted this without argument or complaint. Any erotic liaisons between them were conducted purely with fingertips and hands, never the ultimate union.

 _There are ways, and then there are ways,_ as he once told her.

But now, Saya realizes that she took his superlative self-control for granted—naively thinking another man too, would view pleasure and solace as separate entities.

Solomon isn't Haji.

She feels lonely, isolated by this new distance. She misses the pleasant physical exhaustion of her nights with Solomon, misses the warmth and closeness that he seems to be subtly denying her now, even if he insists it is only for her sake. She is desperate for a distraction from her body's discomfort. Without any visceral link between them, all she and Solomon do is argue night and day.

Clearly, in the face of sexual abstinence, _she_ isn't the only one who gets ill-tempered.

Solomon notices her downcast expression. His eyes soften. "Saya? What's the matter?"

She turns her head. "It's nothing."

Solomon sighs and puts the knife away, reaching out for her. His fingers curl under her arms. Without any effort, he draws her from her chair and into his lap, light and easy as a doll.

Startled, Saya clutches at his shoulders. His skin is surprisingly warm under the material of his shirt. This is the closest she's been to him in the past three weeks. She's dizzied by the force of her own need, to reach out, touch him. Even in wake of their arguments, she can never forget the delight of being in his arms, of feeling his heartbeat against her palm again.

Solomon's tone is softer, more cajoling, "Saya, I know you're upset. You're frustrated with being indoors all the time, and I understand that. But you've only just averted what could have been a terrible disaster. I cannot allow anything else to happen to you—you are too precious to me to risk that way."

As ever, in the face of his gentleness, her anger unravels in seconds.

Eyes averted, Saya focuses on the shiny buttons of his shirt. "I...I know that. It's just—"

"Just what?"

She colors up, stammering. "Just, you won't even…well, spend the night with me these days."

Solomon hesitates. She feels him formulating a reply both appropriate and admissible, without gory medical details he assumes are beyond her ken.

"Sweetheart, we need to be more careful of you… not just for your sake, but for the babies. After your accident in Vietnam, it seemed best that I did not…disturb you, in that sense, until you are better recovered. But that does not mean I don't miss you, Saya. I miss lying with you. I miss being able to hold you. But sleep is impossible for me, and spending the entire night awake beside you—"

She's aware, suddenly, of the heat in his gaze—and how her body hums in response to it. Aware too, that her fingers have crawled their way into his hair, nails moving along his scalp almost on instinct.

She flushes, withdrawing her hand.

All right. Perhaps he had had good reason not to spend these nights with her.

"I—I know," she stammers. "But... I feel much better now. There's no reason to think I'll run any risk, just because of —"

"The doctors specified that you needed recovery time, Saya. And we spoke with Dr. Silverstein herself. She said exactly the same thing."

"She just said I was supposed to limit my activities a little. She never mentioned—"

"Not to you. But I asked her myself later, and she made herself quite clear on the subject."

Her blush deepens. "You... discussed this with Miss Julia without telling me?"

"If I did ask her in front of you, Saya, you would only be embarrassed. I preferred to spare you the trouble. In any case, I wanted to ensure what sort of diet would be better suited to you, after your little misfortune in Vietnam."

He never shared any of these details with her. But it is not the first time he's acted autonomously on an intimate sphere of her life without consulting her.

Saya fights back resurgent annoyance. She has to make an effort, each time, to remember he's only doing this for her sake.

"Well, w-what did Julia say?"

"About your diet? She advised you to drink as much water as possible, and—"

"No, I mean about... you know."

"Oh. Right. Well, in so many words, I was requested to keep my hands to myself for the time being." Taking her wrist, he presses her fingers to his lips. "For now, we both need to be... just a little more patient. We shouldn't spoil things by being too rash. Until then, I'll have to content myself with admiring you from afar."

"I... I see."

The edge of his lip curls. "Of course, if you keep looking at me that way, my high-minded aspirations would be somewhat hindered in the process."

She isn't aware of what sort of look she is giving him. Only aware that the idea of further distance from him brings a dismaying dip to her chest.

But at least they're having a civil discussion for once. She knows better than to pass up on it.

"Well, there are still things—regular things, that we could do together? Without all that…other stuff. Like, visit a theatre, maybe. Or an opera. Or even go to a Jazz club?"—She has no interest in Jazz, but Solomon does; the style was immensely popular in his era, back in 1918, and she knows it makes him nostalgic.

" _Jazz_?" Solomon throws his head back with a laugh. "Who are you, and what have you done with my Saya?"

Saya's lips twitch; Solomon's laughter has such an infectious quality. She hasn't realized how rarely she's been hearing it.

It occurs to her, that Solomon's probably been suffering from their recent distance as much as she. Maybe more so. She hasn't considered that, but it isn't surprising. As Haji was so quick to point out in their childhood, she's selfish, and not very good at imagining anyone's feelings but her own.

"I mean it," she says. "Let's… _do_ something together. Without bodyguards or worrying about if I feel sick or dizzy. We've been indoors way too long. It can't be good for either of us."

"We have only been indoors because you weren't feeling well, Saya. I wanted to keep an eye on you."

"Well, I'm feeling much stronger now. I'd like to be able to see Milan properly, now that I'm here. Instead of from the window or the hotel lobby. Come on, Solomon, please?"

His expression lightens. "Only if you're sure you are all right, Saya."

"I am. Scout's honor."

"You were never a scout, and we both know it."

"Oh, very well." Her tone grows playful, mock-haughty. "You have my word as a purebred Chiropteran Queen. Is that more appropriate for your ears?"

"Well, in that case, your majesty, I would be more than happy to take you wherever you wish. You can decide where you want to go this weekend."

"What? The weekend? Why not today?"

He chuckles. "Because I have to leave to Rome for a meeting today, Saya. I'm surprised you've forgotten. I reminded you of it just yesterday."

"No you didn't! You simply told me you might be busier than usual. You never mentioned any meeting."

"I assumed you understood what I meant. I will be flying out to Rome three hours from now, and back by Friday morning. You will not even notice me gone"

Saya feels a surge of shock. "What? Solomon, _no_!"

"Come now, Saya, it is just one week. I have already arranged for the chef to have your meals prepared, and a doctor will be dropping by in the evenings to give you a check-up, since I won't be there to see to you personally. If you need anything, just let the maid know, and she will get it for you. Everything has been taken care of. You have no need to worry."

"You're just going to leave unannounced while I'm stuck in a houseful of strangers?"

"It's only six days, Saya. There is nothing to be afraid of."

"It's not that! It's just—" She grits her teeth. "I've been confined in here for three weeks now! I want to be able to go out on my own. If you can just leave by yourself without seeing it fit to even _tell_ me, aren't I free to do the same?"

He arches a brow. "My dear, I am not sure that qualifies as the same thing. I am heading out on business. You're confined indoors because you are unwell."

"Not anymore! Besides, I need to be outside! I need a little breathing space!"

"You have more than enough breathing space. You have this whole suite to your sole disposal."

"It's not the same thing!"

"Not the same—" Exhaling, Solomon rubs his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. "Saya, do _not_ deliberately keep making me angry. We have been over this enough times. You are _not_ heading out by yourself, and that is final."

His autocratic tone sends her teeth grinding. She jerks out of his hold and to her feet. The speed with which they always plunge from harmony to discord, with which _he_ always slips from gentleness to coercion, is eerie. "It's not your place to keep telling me what I can and cannot do, Solomon!"

"It is very much my place when you are in danger of harming yourself in the process."

"You can't know that! One hit and miss isn't enough to assume I'll be in danger everytime I go out!"

"It is when you have no clue how to look out for yourself."

Her eyes blaze red. "Fuck that noise!"

" _Saya_."

Suddenly he's on his feet, gaze as fiery-red as hers. At the same moment, the wineglass at his side shatters as though under an invisible fist. Glittering glass and dark matter splatters the table.

Aghast, Saya jerks back, raising defensive fists. But Solomon makes no violent move. He merely takes a deep breath, running a hand through his hair as though the gesture enables him to maintain his self-control.

Slowly, his eyes fade from red to green. But when he speaks, his voice is ominously soft.

"I have had enough of your stubbornness, Saya. In light of your condition, I will overlook this entire discrepancy, but all the same, I am warning you not to push me."

She's incredulous. "Are you _threatening_ me?"

In response, he reaches out and snares her wrist, yanking her to him. With the other hand, he jerks her face to his. The calm air has dissipated; his rage crackles. Leaning close, he says, very clear and soft: "You are not heading out alone. Not now, and not while I am gone. Am I absolutely clear on that?"

Slack-mouthed, Saya can only stare at him.

"I am running late for my flight, but we will discuss this only when I get back. Until then, sit down and finish your breakfast like a good girl. And have someone clean up this mess of yours, for God's sake."

" _My_ mess!"

"Yes. _Your_ mess. It would never have happened if you had not provoked me, and you know it."

"Provo—"

His fingers clamp tight on her wrist, cutting her off. "Saya. _Enough_. This is the last time I will tolerate any defiance from you. As of right now, this. Conversation. Is. Done with."

A dark film flashes before Saya's eyes. She remains perfectly still when Solomon releases her and quits the garden. She hears the entryway door open and click shut, but remains where she is, standing in the middle of the roof. Blood drips hypnotically across the edge of the table, puddling the floor at her feet. Traffic is a murky drone several feet below her.

A strange suffocating wave, part rage, part shock, presses upon her chest, turning everything crimson. She has to fight for a moment to breathe.

Rubber-legged, she slumps into her seat. She can still feel the aching imprint of Solomon's fingers on her wrist. Her whole face burns where he gripped it, throbbing in time to her pulse.

_God..._

_What just… happened?_

She can't think of anyone who's spoken to her that way. People may have tried time and time again to coerce her, but ultimately, she's always been free to follow her own will, make her own choices.

And she can't remember the last time being spoken to in that tone paralyzed her like a frightened child.

_Oh god..._

On reflex, her hand slips into her pocket, fingers curling on the cool surface of the bloodstone within—a split-second before the sudden surge of nausea and hot unwanted tears break through.

* * *


	13. Sunlight

"Madame? May I come in?"

Saya glances away from the sliver of sunlight between the swagged curtains. Her French-speaking maid, Simone, hired by Solomon shortly after the accident in Vietnam, knocks nervously on the half-open door.

"Oh?" Saya straightens from the pillows. "Oh, yes. Go ahead."

Simone sidles into the darkened bedroom, bearing a laden breakfast tray, which she sets on the nightstand. "Were you feeling sick again?"

"What? Oh—oh no. I'm fine. Thank you."

"Shall I draw your bath for you after you've finished your breakfast? Or would you like to stay in bed longer?"

"Hm? It's all right. I'll be up in a bit. You can…get the bath ready." Simone has a propensity for turning Saya's wide porcelain tub into an aromatic dip of bubbles and ambrosia, all with just a few scented bath salts. Saya is incapable of doing it herself—anytime she dares to, she ends up soaking in something that resembles Chinese soup.

She watches from the corner of her eye as Simone moves around the room, drawing back the curtains, filling the room with brilliant sunshine.

"It's such a lovely day out, miss Saya. It's really too bad you haven't been well enough to leave the hotel."

"Hm…" Averting her gaze, Saya brings the breakfast tray upto her chest, breaking her toast in half and dipping it into the eggs. She chews mechanically, watching Simone move from task to task, picking up crumpled clothes and straightening upended books.

Although Saya objected vehemently to Solomon hiring a maid to help her— _I'm fine, I don't need a babysitter_ —she's surprised by how quickly she's adjusted to the other woman's presence. At the Zoo, she grew up in a household of servants, and a childhood of such comfort is difficult to repress, however much she might have later tried to school herself off it.

And Simone is discreet, docile. If she bears any qualms about her employers' eccentricities, like the lady of the house requiring a daily blood transfusion, and the gentleman spending all night in his study and never seeming sleepy, she is _paid well enough to_ _keep her lips sealed,_ as Solomon says.

She is the only female company Saya has in this huge suite. The only other people who interact with her are the chef, who slips in thrice a day to prepare her meals, and then slips out again—and the vile chauffeur/bodyguard, instructed by Solomon to avoid letting Saya go out at all times.

Although Solomon's been away for three days now, he's already called Saya thrice each day, always to gently inquire how she feels. Still, Saya can't escape the sense that he's ensuring she hasn't snuck off from under the bodyguard's nose.

He doesn't once mention his outburst over breakfast, or apologize for it. Indeed, from the way he talks to her, it's almost as though it never happened.

Saya grits her teeth. His constant habit to rule her, to enforce regulations on her life, is infuriating. She may be a novice in matters of the heart, but isn't understanding part and parcel of being in love? A little personal space? She never has the temerity to set rules for Solomon—what gives him the right to think he can do so with her?

Worse, his absence only makes her aware of how _alone_ she is out here. Miles from her family, from anyone she knows. Even with the arguments that have arisen between them, everytime she hears his voice on the phone, she feels a stab of longing she has to struggle to repress.

How is it possible to miss someone who's treating her so intolerably? Why does she feel so guilty everytime she replays their argument, as though it's somehow _her_ fault for upsetting him so much, imposing so many hurdles in their relationship?

Her nights alone only baffle her further. She's steeped in a churning sense of deprivation, loss. She misses the heat of him beside her in bed, the sleek, possessive weight of him on her, the brutally sweet heft of him inside her. Misses the reassuring cadence of his heartbeat as they collapse together afterward in a tangled, sweat-sheened heap; those low musical hums that curl from his throat when she runs her nails languidly through his damp curls. Misses the way he calls her _Angel,_ the way he laces his fingers through hers as though fearing, with the next breath, she may dissipate into nothing.

Things were so good, so wonderful, between them before Vietnam.

Weren't they?

Saya winces. It is all too confusing and unfamiliar. Her mind and body are straining in different directions, tangled as snarls of seaweed. Throughout her life, Haji's unwavering support, his constancy, was the only true basis she could ever rely upon.

She's never been in such a situation before, in this new premise alongside a lover who seems beyond her control or understanding.

But maybe when Solomon comes back...when they talk it out...maybe things will be better then? She can only hope they will, although part of her isn't too sure of that, either.

"Afterward," Simone says, "Would you like me to set your instrument out in the garden for you?"

"My instrument?"

"Your cello?"

"Oh." The authentic Stradivarius Solomon imported for her two weeks ago, to keep her hands busy—and subsequently keep her indoors.

"That might be best," Simone says gently. "Monsieur Goldsmith specified that you were to spend some time in the sunlight."

Saya can't help vent a little acrimony. "Did Monsieur specify how I'm supposed to chew my food too?"

"Madame?"

"Nothing."

Simone moves over to the chair, straightening a wrinkled shirt draped over it. "You don't mind when I listen in while you play, do you, madame? You're talented enough to give concerts in your own right."

Unconsciously emulating Solomon's poise, Saya offers a polite smile, as though knowing better than to take this seriously. "Thank you."

"No no. It's the truth. The boy who works downstairs, he heard you playing yesterday—he said you were almost as good as the musician downtown."

"Musician?"

"Oh yes. You don't know? I saw him myself about a day back. There is a music festival happening—the MITO recital at the auditorium. Amateurs from all over are there to perform—a few were rehearsing outside the building. The Mystery Musician was there too."

"Mystery Musician?"

"That's what they call him. He is extremely popular with the audience."

"Who is he?"

Simone grins. "No one knows. But he has a bona fide talent. And he looks _so_ very…" she gestures with a smirk.

Saya can't help giggle. "Oh, he's nice-looking, is he?"

" _Very_. He's participating in the orchestra; he plays the cello as well as Mozart himself. In fact, he was doing a solo on one of Mozart's works when I arrived there."

"You seem to know quite a bit about classical music."

"My previous employer was a classical devotee; music was his whole life. I was employed at his home with my sister—oh, madame, would it be possible for her to find work here for you as well? Perhaps after your babies arrive, she could be of use to you as a nurse? I'm sure you would need twice as much help then."

"Um…I really don't know. I'll have to see."

"Very well, madame."

Simone returns to tidying up the room while Saya finishes her breakfast. It's only after she sets her hot chocolate down however, that something occurs to Saya.

"What did you say he was? A cellist?"

"Who? My employer?"

"The musician."

"Oh? Yes, he plays cello, like you. Carries it in this enormous case. Shaped very unusually. Almost like a—a—"

Saya feels an uneasy premonition rising like seawater. "Like a…coffin?"

"Yes! Yes that's exactly it. Like a black coffin. It was quite shocking, the first time I saw it—he lugs it about as if it weighs almost nothing!"

"And…what piece did you say he was playing?"

"Mozart. Concerto No. 1. In fact, he even—madame, what is it? You've gone so pale."

Saya can't answer. Her throat is parched, mouth chalky. She feels a precarious sense of dizziness taking hold.

"Madame, do you want me to call the doctor?"

Saya shakes her head. "No. No… I'm fine." She takes a breath. "Did you get his name?"

"Of the doctor?"

"No, the cellist."

"Oh? Actually, I did; I asked it from one of the other musicians there. But I can't remember it; it wasn't Italian or French. I think it maybe it was—"

"Haji?"

Simone blinks, then nods excitedly. " _Yes_! Yes, that's exactly it! _Haji_. And he is part of the classical orchestra. But madame, how do you know? He is not a friend of yours, is he?"

Saya's hands curl limp around her breakfast tray, the fingertips pulsing in shock.

She has no idea how to reply.

* * *

Astonishingly, it is _Nathan_ whose advice Haji has ended up following.

Not on underwear modeling. _God no_. But on putting his talent at cello to commercial use, as one of the orchestral crew at Milan's music festival.

He has undertaken these types of endeavors before, of course. Played professionally during Saya's Long Sleep, in bands, at hotels. The doors open to him without hassle; no one can deny he has a superlative flair for the instrument, even those who have no understanding of classical music at all.

Practice—centuries of it—makes perfect, after all.

A majority of the time, these stints were a necessary distraction, a way to bide the years between Saya's Awakenings. Busking is a suitable trade for a man forever on the move. If the performance is good enough, cafe owners and restaurant managers at the pitch generally encourage the musician, monetarily or otherwise, to play near their establishments as a way to draw more customers.

What's more, Haji's aptitude to blend in with his surroundings, whether in sunshine or rain, at rustic taverns or high-rise hotels, has lent him a freedom to adopt and abandon these trades as he sees fit.

Except now, those unbroken days of music and monotony are no longer expected gaps of waiting for Saya. No longer in the background.

Suddenly, this is what he is _supposed_ to be doing.

He is not sure whether he finds this amusing, or dismal. Everything feels so bland, such a letdown, since the war has ended. But he can't blame this on the culmination of his lifelong mission so much as personal circumstances. After all, he gave himself not so much to _the mission_ , as to the person who existed to carry it out.

To Saya.

Without her, the color has bled out of everything—and he feels both guilty and frustrated at being unable to find a new purpose to resign himself to.

Without her, nothing seems to be enough.

Nonetheless, his loneliness is outweighed by the need to give himself a _function_. Even when laid lowest, he can't escape that dogged practical streak in his nature. He knows he's only doing both Saya and himself a disservice, by sinking into such pointless desolation.

At least here, he can remain occupied. There is no isolation in this new undertaking—the entire orchestra is a unit, a framework of interconnected minds and melodies. He is content with the constant chatter of people around him, their intrusions and disruptions. While he cannot say he is fond of any of the band members, he does not mind them either.

They keep his attention fixed on the moment. Keep his mind from wandering to places he does not want it going.

But it is only his nights, perpetually sleepless, perpetually restless, that are unbearable.

Since his rendezvous in Hong Kong, he has not dared to look for another woman. But that does not make his turmoil any less overwhelming. Every shadow under moonlight seems to unfurl into dark flowing hair. Every flash of bright eyes, the merest arc of a slender neck, seems to bear Saya's shape.

Often, the most innocent things trigger a bottomless chasm of memories. The faint scent of roses. The flash of a voluminous pink skirt. A lilting feminine laugh.

He is assaulted by a choking barrage, steeped in scent, in sound, in sight.

Memories of battles, of flashing red eyes, the  _whoosh_  of singing steel and full-throated screams. A dainty, deadly girl, always in perfect command at the center of chaos. The blood-drenched carnage of each battlefield transformed to a riveting stage, showcasing balletic grace and power. Each recollection so vivid, so intense, he often has trouble ascertaining whether or not it is real.

Other memories too. Of flushed, slippery-sweet lips on his. Of brittle sighs and fragile curves that were once entirely his to worship in their pale splendor. Memories of humid Okinawan nights, the heat softening his brain even as Saya's slick skin under his lips turned his musculature electrified and rigid. How, in those too-rare moments when he could coax her past her diffidence, his kisses and caresses warming her up, loosening the tension she always carried, seeping past her ennui, she would go pliant and dreamy-eyed in his arms.

Letting him play her with the same sense of wondrous discovery as when he'd first learnt to play cello.

Impossible not to re-experience those dizzying moments. The secret flutter of her pulse, inside and out. How she would guide his tender, exploratory fingers with the shy, stirring motions of her body, with her mouth opened against his, gasping hot breath into his, emitting little cries as he found what pleased her. The melting, mesmeric, melodic way she could fall apart for him, tension unfurling down her spine and working her hips to a mysterious, dissonant music, until his senses were so full of the sweet flushed knot of her face and her breathless uneven cries that he'd filtered out almost everything else.

Afterward, she'd dissolve against him, a beautiful shivering wreck, one hand on his chest, transmitting a pulse indolent with satisfaction into the chambers of his heart.

These were the moments he looked forward to most. When she was all yielding sweetness, her armor fallen like petals, eyes glowy in repose. Then, he was free to gather her close, the lush silk of her filling his arms. Free to ply her with kisses, greedy and ecstatic and endless, her hair tendriled across the pillows, sticking to their mouths, their skins, while her small roaming hands stroked down his throat, to his chest and ribs, following the bisecting line of his body down to its vulnerable, hardening crux.

Soon they would both be breathing heavily, well-spent exhaustion subsumed by gathering heat, lax muscles reforming into the taut topography of impatience. And each time, his gentle persistence would finally, inevitably find her delicious nakedness pressed against his, her mouth limned with wet kisses, her red eyes like the flaming half-burnt ends of cigarettes.

Impossible to resist her then, or to deny the undertow of desire pulling hard at his body, urging him to sink between her thighs.

Until she would flinch and jerk away, her hands starfishing his hips—not in welcome, but resistance.

_Don't—please. Not yet._

She always had the power to curb him with a single word or glance.

Haji had never argued. Never pressured her for more. How could he, when he understood how battered her psyche was after the war, how pervasive her fear of feeling too intensely, or letting go too utterly?

At her core, she was less a mature, cautious woman than a damaged little girl. That made it doubly reprehensible to disrespect her choices, to dishonor her by taking advantage of her vulnerability.

So each night, he had obeyed. Let her feed the unsatisfied hunger in his body with her lovely, clumsy hands. Surrendered with clenched teeth and half-bitten groans to the pleasure that was half-answer, half-farce of what he truly desired, even as everything in him sang with gratitude at being so near her.

Afterward, his frenetic pulse returning to its solid baseline, she'd curl into the heavy circle of his arms, sighing, her eyelashes fluttering shut. Those were his favorite moments too, when time hadn't yet resumed its rational flow, and he could focus all his heightened senses on her heartbeat, the soft tumble of her hair under his stroking hand, the heady aroma of her body and how drowsy and blissed-out she seemed, as if she couldn't picture being anywhere else.

Except now he wonders if it was real. If all that sweetness and trust weren't an illusion.

Perhaps it would've be easier that way. To rationalize that she was truly a monster, their shared time together an elaborate deception intended to end in his ruination at her hands.

Except the truth is far more complex, and lends itself to far too many wistful convolutions and bitter realities.

Saya had loved him, in her own fashion. Loved him—yet left him anyway. Because she wanted to free herself of the miserable tangle of their past.

Free herself  _…_ of him.

Haji wonders if, away from the confining memories, his blocking presence, she's gotten what she longed for. She who, however heartbroken and altered by war, was always the bravest and most deserving of women, and who needed someone so much better than he could ever be for her. Haji had once believed that might be Kai. But that was decades ago, the notion stirring only a dark levity now.

He'd never in a thousand years fathomed it might be _Solomon_.

Solomon, who was an insult to everything pure and decent and right. Solomon, who was bestowed a miraculous second chance—while good people, like Riku, and George, and the Schiff, and dozens of worthy allies, were lost forever. Solomon who, despite his steady loyalty to Red Shield, had never truly reformed, because his ulterior motive was always _Saya_. 

Because to a man that faithless and treacherous, the Mission was never about anything but making her _his_.

Haji had convinced himself, after Saya's Awakening, that she was safe from Solomon's clutches. When she'd shyly taken up with him, sharing with him her meals and her bed, her joys and secrets and sorrows, he was sure that potential chapter of her life was closed.

Yet a seedling of doubt always remained. He couldn't deny that Solomon had a powerful sexual pull—on women in general, but particularly on Saya. Easy to pretend it held no merit. But Haji was no fool.

For decades, Saya had been a warrior, tireless in her never-ending quest to destroy Diva. Yet she was also a girl—extraordinary yet heartrendingly ordinary. She still wanted simple joys: family, laughter, happiness, love.

Solomon had always professed he could offer her that.

It was why, during hers and Haji's courtship, the idea of her being near Solomon had always discomfited him. He could never repress—as he did nearly every other emotion—the instinctual hostility the other man stirred up. Could never fully conquer that little jealous streak in his nature. The sense that, as completely as Saya possessed him, he possessed a little bit of her too—and no-one else had a right to her.

Except he has long since forfeited that right. The _would-haves_ and _could-haves_ should no longer carry such an intolerable ache inside him.

_So then why...?_

Haji's jaw tightens, teeth grating.

For the first time since becoming a Chevalier, he _yearns_ for the oblivion of sleep. At least then, when he is plunged in helpless thoughts of Saya, he will at least know he is dreaming. These lucid recollections are more of a merciless torture than her absence could ever be.

But, if only for her sake, he is willing to bear it.

He will not lay waste to the blood within him, nor to the life that calls out for her, blind and desperate, even now.

* * *

Her kitten-heels click on the smooth pavement. The cool bloodstone dances along her chest.

The sunlight is a welcome kiss on her skin. The air, thrumming with a thousand different tastes and scents, feels so _freeing_. At last, she can breathe—breathe with a freedom she's been denied since her suffocating weeks in the hotel.

Immediately, Saya feels her lethargy dwindling. Twirling past a lamppost, skipping down the pavement, she is _giddy_ on this new scenery.

Perhaps it is her innate need for movement, excitement, that led her out here. Perhaps it is the intrinsic willfulness in her nature, that always leads her to follow her own whims, that has inspired her to make this downtown visit.

Whatever the case, Saya won't allow herself to regret it. After being shut indoors so long, she drinks in the people and buildings around her, delighting in even stray cats and cursing fruit vendors.

Right now, prying doctors, hovering bodyguards and dictatorial husbands are the _last_ things from her mind.

Right now, she's _free_.

Slipping out of the suite was easy enough. First, in the crisp authoritative tones she'd seen Solomon use so often with underlings, she ordered the chauffeur to fetch her a long list of toiletries, the kind that would take him hours to figure out, much less find. Then, employing the kind of blithe charm that would have done Solomon proud, she enlisted Simone's help, asking her to tell her husband, in case he called, that _Madame is taking a nap_.

The doctor is not due until evening. She figures that gives her plenty of time to explore and sightsee and get back to the hotel.

She doesn't want to acknowledge that perhaps, greatest of all, she has been lured out here because _Haji_ might be nearby.

Here, in this very city.

The idea of it fills her with equal parts incredulity and unreality. She doesn't know whether she wants this to be true, or whether she dreads it with all her being.

Whatever the case, her body is drawn forward in an irresistible compulsion, in a gravitational pull like that between planets and meteors.

She wanders the crowded streets, blinking in the sunshine and absorbing the tang of activity and clamor like a sponge. Her eyes flit over the road signs, reading the directions mapped out in Italian.

_MITO, that way…_

She pauses a moment to buy bright-yellow tortelli biscuits from a street vendor. Clutching the paper bag to her, she pops the crunchy butter-soaked nubs into her mouth, crossing the crowded pavement. They taste better than all the opulent ladyfingers and caviar Solomon has ever plied her with.

Around her, vivid street art splashes the buildings, red spirals and green loops on the walls. The city reminds her of an upended fruit-basket, a riot of color and scent spilling out onto pavement.

Why haven't she and Solomon ever taken a harmless stroll this way?

Her husband has whisked her all across the world, shown her the greatest man-made marvels, the most breathtaking natural wonders—yet he has never stopped beside her to admire something as simple as a sunrise. They have danced in the most extravagant clubs, attended the most spectacular symphonies and orchestras—but never waltzed sweetly and harmlessly through a quaint town square, with no more music than rustling trees and guitar strings to serenade them.

That basic kind of enjoyment, that simplicity, is just not a part of Solomon's nature. Everything has to be such a ceremony; a feast or a famine, a fantasy or a fracas. All or nothing, and naught in between.

_I wonder if he knows, how much he's missing out on?_

Up ahead, the auditorium looms—a stately majestic structure brocaded by colorful fliers advertising the Music Festival. Dotted with brightly-dressed, camera-happy tourists, with men and women in formal attire, with uniformed workers lugging out cases and equipment from vans.

Apparently a new performance is planned tonight.

At the corner of the street, Saya sees a group of people huddled around something. Curious, she finds herself walking faster, moving toward the huddle.

Which is when she hears it.

That deep, subterranean hum of a bow on cello strings. The melody rolling outward, slowly, majestically, like some spool of rich velvet. Infusing into the humdrum murk around her, the car honks and engines, the shouting voices and discordant skirls of sirens. Blending into the clamor, but never once losing its mesmeric grace, its stirring harmony.

Saya freezes.

 _What_ — _?_

She knows she isn't imagining it. That music is here, coming from somewhere nearby.

Straining her ears, she struggles to catch wisps of the tune, narrow out the source. Weaves her way toward the crowded corner. The music is coming from _there_ ; she hears it growing louder with each step. She trails after it, powerlessly pulled, down busy streets and intersections, dodging bikes and cars.

She feels rather like a rat lured to a magical Pied Piper's tune. Indeed, she can practically taste a premonition surging within her, an _aliveness_ like in those fleeting moments before death.

_Who?_

_Who is playing that…?_

That is when she sees him.

There, amid the crowd. Seated on a bench as though it is the most natural place for him to be. That same cello propped up against his frame, the same intricate coffin-shaped case lying at his feet. His head is lowered as he saws the bow across strings, long fingers spidering nimbly along the pegbox.

He has not changed at all. Tendrils of black hair, longer than before, fall untied around his face in careless elegance. Features poised and smoothly patrician, as though he has grown up in high-ceilinged manors sipping red wine and practicing fencing with superlative finesse. His suit is different, yet not—another classic-timeless black ensemble that might have been tailored centuries ago, or just yesterday.

The crowd of people gathered around him is composed of locals and tourists alike. A few giggling teenage girls, some small children, softly-murmuring men and women.

His music seems to hold them all in thrall, so deep and compelling are its strains. It is a song of dignified loss and grief, played with the understanding of a true sufferer. Someone who neither accuses others, nor pities himself. And the musician himself; so lost within the music that he seems almost impervious to the crowd, and to the world at large.

He seems to inhabit his own safe dominion, a vault within his mind, composed of that bewitching lustrous melody.

Saya's mouth drops open, even as she stands there at the sidewalk, blinking in disbelief.

_Oh god._

_It really_ is _him._

_It's..._

Haji.

It is her one lucid thought before she jerks back on rubbery knees _—_ and the world goes askew in a spiral of blue sky and yellow tortelli biscuits as she tumbles head-over-heels into the flower-bed behind her.

"Ah, _dammit_!"


	14. Reflection

They sit face-to-face at a café table on the esplanade, divided by a fiery-red rose in a glass holder.

Around them, traffic drones in a nebulous mass. But here, there seems to be a hush, as if they hang unanchored from the world, suspended in space. They haven't greeted each other, not shared a _hello_ , or _how have you been_. It seems almost absurd to; the peculiarity of greeting one's own reflection each morning in the mirror.

Saya blows on the steaming teacup in her hands, taking a nervous sip. Eyes fixed on Haji.

In daylight, his dark suit and black hair render his skin even whiter. He hasn't changed from her memory, neither in demeanor or appearance. Polite, poised, with that preternatural stillness of a marble sculpture.

Only his eyes are different. Overcast and heavy-lidded now, in a way they never were before. As though he's traversed centuries in the past few months alone.

 _My fault,_ Saya thinks dimly. _I did all this to him._

_Froze his time, made him go through so much agony at my account, made him wait years on end…_

_And then I just… abandoned him._

She feels a hot flash of shame.

"Are you feeling better now?" Haji asks. His eyes are pinned on the rose between them like a fragile barrier. Throughout the fifteen minutes he's helped her to this table, he's avoided looking at her.

Like he's convinced that she's a figment of his imagination, a mirage.

Just as she fears he might be.

"Um, yeah, I'm fine," Saya mumbles. "I'm not dizzy anymore."

"I apologize if I startled you."

"You don't have to. Really. I just…I was so surprised to see you. Here in town. And I certainly didn't mean to steal your show by falling into a flowerbed again."

"It's fine."

"Everyone there must have thought I was crazy or something. Or…or that the biscuits I was eating were poisoned." She lets off a tiny laugh, and feels the distance narrow when Haji's own lips lift slightly at the corners.

"Either way, you succeeded in catching my attention."

"Mm. Just…I never expected I'd run into you this way. How long have you been here?"

"Approximately a month now."

"A month? I can't believe I didn't realize it. Although, I guess I wouldn't be able to tell. I didn't really go out much. Wasn't…feeling upto it."

"Why? Have you been ill?"

She quickly shakes her head. "No, nothing like that. Just…a little bit sick in the mornings. But Miss Julia tells me I'll be better soon. The weather here is good; I've been here for three weeks now, and I feel better each day."

"Three weeks." Haji's gaze lowers. "That explains it."

"Explains what?"

"The past few weeks, I felt…distinctly…that you might be in this city. But it seemed so unlikely, I pushed it to the back of my mind. I convinced myself I was imagining it."

Saya has no idea what to say to that. His words don't seem like a confession of longing, so much as disappointment. Is he sorry that she is here? Or simply sorry that he didn't realize it sooner, so that this whole meeting could have been avoided in the first place?

She doesn't want to think about that.

Her eyes fall to his hand instead, resting a few inches from the crystal vase. Pale and spiderlike, entirely unchanged from her memory. Her own hand lies opposite to his, placed in the same position. She isn't conscious of setting it there, but it seems fitting. As if they share a single set of nerves, a single set of bodies.

Then the sunlight strikes off her diamond ring, and the fancy wilts to shreds.

She realizes Haji's studying her. Expression dispassionate enough that he may be checking out an advertisement on the wall behind her, or a signboard across the street. Except he can't hide the look in his eyes.

She doesn't think she has ever seen such regret in them, except on that faraway train journey when she made him promise to kill her.

"What is it?"

Haji blinks, abruptly conscious of what he's doing. "…Nothing. I'm sorry."

"What? Are there biscuit crumbs on my face?"

"It's not that. Only…" He hesitates, lips flattening to a soft line. "You look... healthy. I'm glad for it."

The last words she ever expected to hear. From the last person she expected to see.

This whole situation feels so surreal; the coincidental meeting of old friends, lifelong comrades. The frivolous serendipity of it, a tinge of _fancy-meeting-you-here_. Things that have to do with normal human beings who live normal lives—but which seem so out of context to everything she and Haji are to each other.

 _Were,_ she tells herself firmly _. What we were to each other._

_All that is over now._

Aloud, she asks, "So, um…what have you been doing? Before Milan, I mean. Where have you been?"

Almost instantly, she feels a flash of anger— _it's not your business to ask what he's been doing. You have no right._

But Haji answers her gently, as if unaware of any such protocols between them. "I engaged in some travel before arriving at Milan. Spent some months in China."

"In China? Where?"

"In… Hong Kong, most recently." There's a subtle catch in his voice. She notices a faint tremor run through his fingers. That gesture she knows so well—one that, since his boyhood, communicates hidden blisters pulsing at the back of his mind. Unconfessable truths.

_Was he in Hong Kong… with someone else?_

_Is he here with anyone else?_

A flash of jealous confusion colors the air around her. She wants to ask him, even as she dreads the answer.

"…I saw you there," Haji says.

"Wh-what?"

"In Hong Kong. At Portland street. You were there with your husba—with Solomon."

Saya freezes, shock feeding a hot gallop in her throat. "What? Why don't I remember—"

"No, it was purely coincidence that I happened upon you. I did not want to intrude."

"W-when was this?"

"Around March. You were in a clothing store. Looking at a pink dress." Haji pauses, eyes lifting to hers. "Are you adjusting all right to being with him, Saya? Is he... treating you well?"

The question, so candid and gentle, slashes like one of his silver daggers. Or is it simply the sound of her name on his lips?

She hasn't realized, until this moment, how much she's missed hearing it.

_Saya, didn't Joel specify that you were not supposed to sneak into the kitchens before the banquet?_

_Saya, please try to take better care of yourself. You have an important mission to fulfill._

_Saya, would you like to try the cello for a little while? It has been awhile since you played._

_Saya, you do not need my permission to live your life. You have always been free to do as you please._

_Saya... Saya..._

"Saya?" Haji's voice cuts through her musings.

Flinching, she forces her gaze to his. "Hm?"

"I asked how you were doing with Solomon. Is everything going all right?"

"Oh? Um, yes, it's—it's good. I'm visiting every place I dreamed of going. I've been to islands with all these pretty beaches, and huge hotels where you feel like you're sinking clean into the mattress. Shopping. Fireworks and festivals. It's…it's wonderful. As free as life can get."

"I asked how he was treating you, Saya. Not what places you visited."

The remark chops like an axe through her. She flinches but can't look at him. Can't find a way to form a proper answer—not to him, nor to herself.

Her fingers tighten on the teacup, a strange defensiveness creeping into her tone. "Why are you asking me this?"

Haji falters as if she's slapped his face. "I… I am sorry if I am being intrusive, Saya. I simply wished to know…"

"Wished to know what?"

"Whether... you were happy with your new life."

_Happy._

Why does that word evoke such a sick lump in her throat?

Is it because she has no idea how to answer? Because even if she tells him she is happy, it won't change the fact that he isn't? That he may never be?

At the same time, she wonders: _Am I happy with my new life? Am I happy with Solomon?_

Uncertainty floods her, but she struggles to cling to the moorings of honesty. Brushing past the memories of hers and Solomon's recent fights, the cold way he treated her before leaving, she snatches at warmer moments, at the sweet tenor of his voice against her ear, at how welcome and delicious his fingers feel on her skin. At how ready he is to devise new methods, new means, to excite and satisfy her at every turn.

She would never have imagined, until she'd met him, that her existence could be a source of such pleasure and exhilaration. The appetites, the abilities he's lured out of her, the ways in which he's relished in and appeased them... it still stuns her to contemplate. Before Solomon, she may have been merely comfortable with what she was, but she'd never have seen her being as a means of celebration or contentment. As a means of anything except suffering.

He loves her—he _does_. That much she is sure of.

And at his side, she has experienced, luxuriated in so much. As much within herself, as in everything else.

"Ye-es," she says. "I'm fine. He—Solomon—he's doing the best he can to keep me happy. He's taking me all over the world, just like I always dreamed of going. We're…getting used to each other right now, that's all. Trying to fine-tune ourselves to a new kind of life. It won't happen overnight, but we'll get there. It's just a matter of time."

Haji inclines his head, but the gesture is oddly detached, as if he's accepting her reply without truly accepting it at all. His fingers scrape across the table's surface. He used to do that back at the Zoo, as a teenager. Whenever he was feeling agitated and couldn't keep still, or wanted to haul off and hit something.

She wonders which one it is now.

"Of course," he says. "Time clarifies everything. It shows us where we truly stand on every matter."

"Mm. And, well, when we first met, you and I didn't get off on the right foot, either, remember? It took time for us to be friends, to accept each other."

"I suppose so."

She tries on a hopeful little smile. "Do you... remember all the fights we used to have? Especially back in the early days? Every single thing we did together ended in me screaming and pulling at your hair and you cursing and swatting at me. Joel and the servants would always show up because we made such a terrible ruckus."

"I remember. At one point you even tossed food at my head."

"But I missed—and the walls were covered in slabs of sliced lamb-leg for hours afterward."

"Your aim was terrible."

"No it _wasn't_ ; you were just too short to get a good hit on. And I only did that after you stepped on my dress with your muddy shoes, if you remember." She pauses, chuckling slightly. "If I hadn't known better, I'd think you took the route through the garden on purpose, just to get your feet all mucky."

A tiny smile, even sly, alights his lips at this—and something long-absent crackles through her.

She never can quite forget, regardless of the distance between them, of the enchantment in his smile, how it lights his face with such heartbreaking vibrancy.

He still is, as he has always been, hypnotic in his beauty. Dark where Solomon is fair, staid where her husband is mercurial. But with the same magnetism about him, the same nonchalance of taking his appearance for granted, in such a way that no one else can do the same.

Certainly, Saya doesn't think any of the women who cross his path would.

Jealousy rises again in a suffocating wave. She blurts the question before reconsidering:

"Haji. Were you… with someone in Hong Kong?"

Haji stiffens. "What?"

"There. In Hong Kong. Were you with someone else? Is that why you didn't want to meet me there? Or did seeing me make you so sick that—"

"Saya, that is not what I meant..."

"But—have you?"

Haji's expression shifts, eyebrows slanting down. His lashes are a thick screen over his hooded eyes. "Have I…what?"

But Saya doesn't repeat herself. Because she realizes, with a choking dread, that in that question, he's already given her the answer.

Impassive as Haji is, she still knows him, knows his body-language and inflections, as well as she once knew the sharpest and bluntest edges of her sword.

And knows too, where to gauge each fissure and crack.

It's true. He's been with someone.

Something inside her crumbles. For a second, she feels like that night she ran hysterical and half-crazed back to the Zoo, to find the entire mansion ablaze, and Joel dangling limp as a ragdoll between Diva's gleeful blood-splattered fangs.

The backs of her eyes burn. "Y-You did."

"Did what?"

"You were with someone in Hong Kong. I can tell you were."

Haji's eyes widen, lips parting at an impulse to denial. "Saya, I…"

"No. You don't have to explain it to me, Haji. I-I understand. I understand what you're going through—how can I not? But I only asked because…"

"Saya, in Hong Kong, I was—"

She shakes her head wildly. "No. I told you, there's no need for explanations. How can I begrudge you for—for finding someone else? For wanting a little comfort, after everything I made you go through?"

"Saya, you don't understand…"

She shoots to her feet. "Haji. I—I'm so sorry. I don't think I should be here. I should go, shouldn't I? This whole thing…running into you like this—I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to happen. Really. You don't need any of this. I'm so sorry. I'm going."

"Saya—"

She evades his grasping hands, barreling into the crowded street. He calls after her, but she doesn't answer. People seem to leap out of her way, tumbleweeds of human flesh; the pavement feels like rubber against her heels.

She doesn't know how long she runs. The scenery flies indistinct around her in a flapping film reel. Narrow alleyway ahead, beckoning like a dark embrace. She skids to a hard stop there, pressing her forehead to the rough wall. Takes a few deep breaths, fighting to compose herself, to stop the trembling that has seized all her limbs.

And ends up breaking instead into convulsive sobs.

She can't understand where this grief is coming from—her recent fights with Solomon have already whittled at her self-control. But seeing Haji here now, talking to him, only shreds those barriers completely apart.

Suddenly, everything she's been fighting not to remember—her disgust and rage in the war, the uncertainty of her amnesia, her father's voice and Riku's bubbling laugh, the screaming, the blood—and most of all, every memory of _Haji_ —hits her in a cold splash.

Doubling over, Saya fights for air amid sobs. Something hurts up inside her, so hard it's almost impossible to _breathe_ around it. But perversely, she welcomes the sensation.

This is the most honest, most open, she's allowed herself to feel in a long time.

"Saya?"

She jerks at the sound of his voice.

Haji stands at the mouth of the alley, a pale-faced black pillar. The blend of shadows and sunlight casts a glittering halo around his hair, making it impossible to get a fix on his features. "Saya, are you all right?"

She swipes disgustedly at her cheeks, hating herself for letting him see her this way. She's cried in front of him before, of course—so many times. But that's one liberty that she can't let herself have with him anymore.

Never again.

Keeping her face averted, she whispers, "I—I'm fine. You didn't have to come after me."

"You left your bag at the table."

"Huh?"

He holds her pink purse out to her, so bright and dainty in his pale hand. She's more accustomed to seeing him hefting daggers, extending swords. This frivolous belonging seems so out of place in his grasp, as if she's seeing him superimposed in the glitter of her new life.

Really, he hasn't changed at all. No more than her memories of the war, or all the sadness stored up inside her, still howling like a beast to be let loose.

Part of her wonders if she'll ever be free of it at all.

Saya takes the bag with shaky fingers, taking care not to brush his. "Um... thank you."

"It's nothing." He waits until she has she rummaged inside for a Kleenex, wiped at her wet face and taken a few deep breaths, before he asks, "Are you all right?"

She nods, unable to trust words.

Haji hesitates, then steps closer. His voice holds a caution akin to treading barefoot on broken glass. "Saya. What I... did in Hong Kong—"

She wards him off with a quickly-raised hand. "No, Haji. Please. I-I understand. I really do. How can I pass any judgments on you for wanting to be with someone else? For…not wanting to be alone? And if—she's nice to you…if she makes you feel better, then there's really nothing I can say. There's nothing I can—"

"Saya, you do not understand. I am not…with anyone."

"Wh-what?"

Haji averts his eyes, hair hanging lank and glossy about his cheeks. In the pale light, Saya can make out each distinct weave on his clothes, all the fine hairs across his eyebrows and the hollows of his face. The tips of his shoes are smudged in dirt from walking across the streets.

Not just in daylight, but all through the night.

"What I did in Hong Kong…I did upon impulse, Saya. Futile impulse. I hoped that if I sought distraction in someone else, it would make me feel better. But it did not; I suppose it was foolish of me to ever assume it would."

"What?"

"It's true, I was with someone in Hong Kong. But it…only happened once. That was the end of it. I should not have done it; I knew this even before I made the decision to. I already knew it would not change anything. Certainly... not the way I feel about you."

She flinches as though struck, the sentence reverberating through her. She whispers "Haji…" but it sounds almost like, "Don't."

Then Haji's eyes meet hers, drained and simple, and she can't look away. "Would you prefer if I did not say it? I have always tried to be honest with you, Saya. To the best of my ability. And I…I know that trying to find reprieve in anyone else will be a wasted effort. I still love you, that is all. "

There. He said it.

And suddenly the tears flood out as if they never even stopped.

Haji's eyes widen, startled. She shies from his gaze.

She can't explain what's wrong with her. Looking at his face, hearing his voice—it's all just too hard. His presence fills her with all those sensations, associations, she's been trying so hard to forget since the war ended. The pain and anxiety and grief.

The regret.

As if impelled more by instinct than forethought, Haji approaches her. A cool pad of thumb brushes at her cheek. She shivers, feeling a sick sad twinge at the memory of his cool dry hands upon her skin. Remembering, and not without a heavy dose of misgiving, all those little ways he could draw the tension out of her body, as if by some mysterious charm. _God_ —in those early days in Okinawa, as their physical relationship had deepened, it had begun to take nothing for him to stir her into the half-drowsy serenity of a trance, or into the feverish tremors of heat. Just the sound of his voice had been enough, the merest caress of his fingertips, the cool touch of his lips.

_Stop it._

Then Haji speaks, as if he can read her thoughts—yet still know nothing at all. "I am sorry if I am upsetting you, Saya. I just…needed to tell you the truth. But I have no wish to trouble you this way. Do you want me to leave?"

She shakes her head. "I'm the one who should be asking you that question, Haji. Wondering if…my being here is bothering _you_."

Haji hesitates, but doesn't withdraw his hand. Saya can feel him thinking, the minute vibration of his pulse put out like exhaled breaths in the air between them.

She almost wants to lean closer, draw it in. His presence feels like some long-forgotten _home_ to her.

"I... do not want you to go, Saya," he says.

"N-no?"

"No. I would be lying if I said your presence here… does not make a difference to me. That it does not affect me, in any way. It does. More than you can imagine. But at the same time, it is—"

"It's… good to feel something again." The words spill from her mouth unbidden.

And it hits her:

Up until this meeting, she hasn't truly been _feeling_ anything at all.

She recognizes then, what this heavy sensation is. This strange aching weight, sister to the displacement she felt in the war, sinking into her like an old illness. Like a sort of inside-out echo of her amnesia—she was protected from her past and the ugly truths, by a blank memory that was not really protection at all. Until her old self, the real one, was dragged out at Haji's sudden invocation.

Deja vu, all over again.

A silence falls between them. But so different from the dire hush she's been sharing these few weeks with Solomon. Silence has never been an impediment between her and Haji. It is still, as always, merely the continuation of a conversation not yet started.

"Saya." Haji's eyes are questioning. "Has... something happened?"

"What? What do you mean?"

"Is there anything wrong? You seem…strained."

Gaze shaded, she shakes her head.

_God, Haji._

_What could I possibly say to you?_

It seems wrong… selfish….to tell him about any problems between her and Solomon. That is not what she wants him to know; she doesn't want to invite his pity. He let her go so that she could be happy, after all. By piling him with her own selfish complaints and inadequacies, she'll only be detracting his sacrifice, redoubling his loss.

_This is not his problem anymore._

_You can't_ let it be _his problem._

Except he's studying her, with that soft unpressing gaze that seems to say that she's free to confess anything. That regardless of what she reveals, she'll be accepted, without condition or judgement.

And in its wake, the truth comes out faster than expected.

"It's... nothing, Haji," she stammers. "Just, sometimes, this new life... doesn't seem real to me."

"Not real?"

She closes her eyes. "I don't know. I can't explain it. It's not real…and at the same time, it all feels too real. Like it's just too much to handle. It's as if my past is always closing around me, and I'm always trying to fight it off. All the things I did, everyone who died because of me. I'm struggling each day to move past all that. Find a new me. Except I—I seem to lose more of myself each time. I just don't know what I'm supposed to be anymore. Where I'm supposed to go from here."

"Saya…"

Her own restraint snaps before he can finish. Thwarted fears all rushing out with the sudden havoc of a goblet shattering to pieces.

Shuddering, she moves beyond his reach. "I'm just…I'm tired all the time, Haji. Tired, and unsure, and…just always afraid. Everytime I close my eyes, everytime I'm alone and there's nothing else to think of—all those awful things from the war keep rushing back. I keep remembering…everyone I'm not supposed to. I-I'm so sorry for all of it, there's never a moment when I'm not sorry for what I've done. But being sorry…doesn't change anything. It can't bring anyone back."

"No one can bring back what is lost, Saya. The most we can do is learn from our mistakes and move on. Make sure that we will never repeat them again."

"I know. And I'm trying to move on. I really am. I don't want to sit around… just always feeling sorry for myself. I've gotten this second chance to be free now. I should be making something of it. But everytime I try to enjoy it too much…everytime I try to let it go… I just _can't_. It's like, ever since the war, something in me feels broken, but I don't even know what it is. I'm not sure I even know _how_ to be happy anymore."

When she says this, her entire body prickles, aware of its truth. This one thing she's been trying not to think of, not to believe about herself. Yet its certainty sears her like Hellfire.

Tears well in her eyes; Haji's face seems to swim before her. His gaze is soft, neither accusatory nor pitying, but he doesn't move to touch her. She's glad for that. If he does, her self-control may fray completely.

With a deep breath, Saya dabs at her eyes. "I-I'm sorry, Haji. I don't mean to sound so...ungrateful and self-absorbed. I'm not making any sense, am I?"

"It is all right, Saya. So much has happened in the war; no one denies how difficult that weight is to bear. But trying to bear it while starting your life over…that makes it even harder. You should not feel guilty for being confused. It will take time to adjust to all these changes. That is all."

Silence has always been Haji's métier—but like Solomon, he too carries this propensity, to tweak straight to the truth of her dilemmas. Yet, unlike Solomon, Haji never once tells her how she is supposed to feel or be. Not plying her with promises of eternal happiness; not chiding her with implications that she's better off forgetting her past.

Never doing anything, really, but accepting her as she is, and offering only his silent support in return.

"I've missed you, Haji." It falls from her lips without volition.

Haji steels himself with an imperceptible wince. Yet, in his silence, she hears his equivalent answer.

_I have never stopped missing you…_

Somewhere in the street outside, a car horn echoes. She hears the distant whoop of police sirens. The noise swirls into their corner with a sudden reminder of the outside word; the moment, of almost overwhelming intimacy, dissipates.

Wary now, Haji glances around. "Where... is Solomon?"

"He's, um…he's in Rome. He had some business there."

"Rome? Shouldn't he be here with you?"

"No, it's not like that. He had a meeting out of town; it's just for a week or so."

"I am surprised he did not opt to stay here. You... do not seem to be in the best of health."

" _It's not like that_." Her voice cracks, eggshell-brittle. She flinches and takes a deep breath. "Haji, please. You don't… need to sound so accusatory. He's just gone for a little while. It doesn't matter. I-I don't really mind."

"You had a fight with him." His eyes are questioning, yet it isn't a question.

Her throat closes, head buzzing with residual anger, guilt. Why does she feel so exposed with him? Why can't she make herself lie, convince him everything is fine?

"Please, let's not talk about it."

Haji's eyes narrow. "Saya, has he... said anything to you? Has he done anything?"

"No, I-I told you. It's fine. There's no need to blow it out of proportion. Solomon's just very unknowable sometimes, that's all. There's so much we still don't understand about each other. It'll take time for that to happen. That's all there is to it."

"Perhaps so. But if you are in any trouble, you are always free to say so, Saya. Without excuses or justifications. It is a matter of your own happiness now; there are no more obligations that should tie you down."

"I-I know."

"Please, just try to be strong. You have given up so much for the sake of others; allow some of that kindness for yourself now. You deserve to be happy."

"Happy." She swallows. "Sometimes I wonder… if I'm supposed to be happy at all. If it's even meant for me. Everytime I try to be…something always seems to go wrong."

"Of course you deserve to be happy, Saya. Everyone does. It is what everyone moves forward for, at every step of their lives."

"I know. But what if... someone's attained everything that's necessary for their happiness. And they... still aren't happy? What does that say about them?"

Haji shakes his head. "That simply means that they haven't yet found in themselves, what makes them whole in the first place."

"So…to be happy, I need to start with myself, you mean?"

"Yes. And when you do, everything else will fall into place." His eyes meet hers, gentle and earnest. "You will learn to be happy, Saya. You just…need to give yourself some time."

She nods, but can't answer.

Traffic continues to hum beyond the alley, a reminder of a separate life; shadows lengthen and darken as evening looms. She knows she ought to be getting back to her hotel, before someone notices her gone, but her whole body forks in resistance to this idea.

_Get back to what in your hotel?_

To a gourmet meal as expensive as half of Omoro's menu, to a roomful of servile strangers and closets of beautiful clothes? To a silent room and an empty bed and Solomon's voice on a cold plastic phone?

It is not as if, by keeping away, she's missing out on anything.

Whereas here...

Here...

"Haji," she whispers suddenly, eyes lowered.

"Yes?"

"Haji, you're free to refuse. But if it's not too much trouble, could we just... spend some time together right now? I mean, just for a little bit? Maybe talk a little longer?"

A flash of surprise crosses Haji's face, but he stifles it in the next instant. "Of course. What do you wish to do, Saya?"

_What do I wish to—?_

She shakes her head, lifting her eyes to his. "Never mind what I wish to do, Haji. For once, just tell me... what do _you_ wish to do?"

"Saya..." She can't tell whether he's bemused or unnerved.

"Please, Haji. Just... anything. Take me someplace you want to go. Anywhere. Just so I can pretend, a little while, that everything's okay. That we're... still friends."

"We have never stopped being friends, Saya."

Tears start up behind her eyes again. She takes a breath, forcing them down. Impossible to determine where all this grief keeps welling up from. Exactly _how much_ salt water does a body contain?

She blinks as a sudden cool hand closes around her's. Gently, Haji guides her out of dark alley, toward the sunlit street.

"Where—where are we going?"

"Out of this alley, for one. It is not safe here, Saya."

Nodding, she dabs halfheartedly at her swollen eyes. Haji draws her slowly out of the shaded lane, into the bustling street. But when he moves to release her hand, her own fingers tighten on his, holding him in place. She lets him weave her through the pedestrians without protest—unlike Solomon, Haji never steers her along like an expensive car or a complicated yacht; they seem intuitively to move at the same pace.

"Where are we going?" she repeats, shading her eyes in the reddening sunlight.

Haji's lips arc into an imperceptible smile. "Just follow me, Saya. I think I know the way."


	15. Yearning

The office's floor-to-ceiling window lets in brilliant sunlight.

Solomon has always been partial to bright windows and sweeping spaces. Almost as partial as his fellow-Chevalier Karl was to enclosed corners and muted lampshades.

Karl always preferred shadows and darkness. He once told Solomon, in a rare moment of candor, how it was easier to retreat into yourself in the dark, to shy from the world at large. Forget who you were _supposed_ to be, but embrace who you truly _were_.

Be free of yourself.

But for Solomon, brightness was ideal. In full sunlight, every defect was so clear that it became almost impotent in its imperfection. It allowed you to focus on things outside of yourself. To forget your own empty spaces by calling to attention all the wretchedness surrounding you.

Forget about yourself.

It does not escape Solomon, even years later, that for their surface differences, he and Karl were very similar that way. They were both running from themselves, from the black holes howling for saturation within them.

Struggling to escape the emptiness of their own lives.

Neither of them truly had a reason to live. Not in their human life, nor as Chevaliers. Their Queen, evanescent as lightning as twice as destructive, held no place in her heart for either of them.

Diva had neither loved, nor needed any of her Chevaliers. Much as Solomon adored her, or once did, the sentiment bore the same abstract veneration of worshipping moonlight. And like moonlight too, he understood early on that Diva would remain beyond his reach.

In the absence of her love, neither he nor Karl could find another reason to devote themselves to. The world was merely a bleak background in which they existed, trapped for eternity.

Karl resorted to one extreme, retreating mind and body from that world, drowning in the poison of his own isolation. Solomon took the other extreme, walking out to face that world with an empty smile and vacant eyes, letting the loneliness tear him apart in a toxic feast of wine and food and sex.

He always assumed he was neither as masochistic nor as strong as Karl, to destroy himself in one fell swoop.

Until Saya crossed their paths.

Suddenly, the very _reason_ for existence that forever eluded them, was embodied in her eyes.

 _How fatalistic,_ Solomon thought, when he first learnt what their opposing Queen lived for, _to devote your whole existence to a mission that neither sustains you, nor makes you happy, but which you are still willing to suffer so much for. As if, without it, there will be nothing left of you at all._

_It's almost like being in Love._

_How brave and pure,_ Karl had said, _to live your life for one reason alone. To be so immersed in it that nothing else in the world can matter in comparison. To need something so much that, in its absence, you will utterly cease to exist._

_It's almost like courting Death._

Perhaps, in her own way, Saya did personify both Love and Death. Her self-destructive quest bore the finality of both phenomenon.

And Love and Death are so inextricably yet paradoxically bound to _life,_ that it was unsurprising why Solomon and Karl were drawn into her orbit.

Solomon still recalls, how Karl always spoke of Saya as though of a light at the end of a tunnel. A bonfire of carnage.

And Solomon agreed. That girl he first danced with at the Lycee, neither jaded by bloodshed nor suffering, had glowed with every word. The faintest curve of her lips, the softest glimmer of her eyes, was overflowing with dynamic _life_.

When Solomon told Saya that night, that the city skyscrapers could not compare to her beauty, it wasn't verbose rhetoric.

He's read a thousand poems, a million sonnets, that associate life to illumination, to _light_. Memorized a million sonnets too, that liken people who seek the fulfillment of love and death, to moths. Creatures that flutter aimless throughout their existence, that are hopelessly drawn to flame although it can destroy them in a heartbeat.

That are perhaps drawn to flame _because_ it can.

 _On balance, what are death and love except a means to an end?_ Solomon often mused after Karl's death. _What are they, except a path to oblivion?_

_Perhaps Karl was more honest in that sense than I ever could be. He truly did want to die._

_And perhaps, deep down, so do I._

What greater sign of wooing death is there, after all, than falling in love with your sworn enemy?

Solomon smiles faintly.

Outlined in sunlight, he leans back in his seat, nodding politely at the men around his table. His lips move with the same perfunctory ease, murmuring questions and propositions that make everyone around him leap with feedback, eager to please as a litterful of puppies.

He hears each word as if through a filter; parsing out what is important to him, while flicking away each irrelevant dreg like hot ash off a cigarette.

After all these years, he has reached a point where he can intuit what everyone is saying, thinking, without paying full attention at all. Blinking every two seconds also helps; it keeps his eyes moist, makes them shine as though with keen interest. He can give the impression of total focus, even when his mind is light-years beyond.

And right now, unsurprisingly, it is on Saya.

Only three days away from her, but already, Solomon feels a volatile tension running through him, like a cord stretched too tight.

Just _three days_ without her, and he yearns for the sound of her voice, for each enthralling nuance of her scent and heat. Seated in this sunlit room, smiling calmly at everyone and speaking with elegant equanimity, his mind is a furnace of turmoil. Every inch of him sings for her in a salvo of deprivation.

Things between them have been strained since Vietnam, he'll be the last to deny it. What's more, her health has been precarious—he knows he must keep his distance, give her time to recuperate. That is partially why he conceded to this weeklong trip, after all. For a chance to breathe, to clear his mind of the sensory haze that only _Saya_ is capable of awakening in him.

He is normally an eloquent man, adept at playing with words. But he can never articulate the effect she has on him.

His poise crumbles to dust when she is within ten feet of him. The willpower he so prides himself for, both mental and physical, ignites to sheer havoc when her eyes meet his. And these past few weeks have been _torment_. To have her so close all the time, yet not. Free to hold and to possess, yet not.

Each night, he'd retreated to his en-suite study, shutting himself in like a wild starveling safe only in confinement. But there was no escaping the enormity of his desires. The idea that of being unable to hold her, to inhale the saltysweet perfume of her skin, to kiss her breasts and trace his way down her body with his open mouth and hands, to hear her helpless mewling cry as he filled her, passion darkening into raw need, made him want to _die_.

Self-control is so much more plausible, when you don't know precisely _what_ you are missing out on.

 _Out of moderation, a pure happiness springs,_ Solomon remembers hearing as a schoolboy. A quote from Wolfgang Van Goethe, if his memory serves. Of course, he doubts Goethe ever experienced the closest sensation there is to _bliss_ , absolute and unconditional, in his mortal life.

Otherwise, he too would know it is _impossible_ to think of anything except experiencing it again—moderation be damned.

But in this case, impulsiveness on Solomon's part is out of the question. He almost lost Saya in Vietnam. Indeed, he's won her acceptance, won _her_ , after such a storm of struggle, that he refuses to lose her to anything else, inside or out.

It's been centuries since he was a soldier. But intrinsically, his mind never quite stopped functioning in terms of battle.

 _Once victorious over conquered territory, it is equally imperative to_ defend _your victory._

He concedes that he treated her somewhat harshly before leaving. But he is willing to do everything in his power to make her overlook it. His angel, temperamental and misguided as she often is, needs a little direction to steer her in the correct path. And sometimes, that requires a firm hand.

In some ways, he admits their daily clash of wills is an interesting novelty—he has never truly experienced that with a woman before. Certainly not with Diva. He was never a man to relish in conflict, the way Karl did. But something about Saya seems to heighten his every fleeting urge and emotion.

It is almost like his early days of becoming a Chevalier, when all his senses felt as if they'd been snapped wide open—the merest glance or inhalation presenting a dazzling array of details, such as he could never before have imagined. Colors ten times brighter, scent a hundred times sharper. Hearing, seeing, all enhanced as though under a stimulant.

Yet, all that sensorial bliss is nothing compared to when he touches _Saya._

These emotions that she rouses in him, blind and nearly unquenchable—these urges that translate into hot bursts of lust and fascination and possessiveness—are terrifying. Are they simply inspired by a Chevalier's instinct, by the temptation and danger the opposing queen embodies? Or are they born out of nothing but the most helpless expressions of love?

He has no idea.

Until he met Saya, he never was _in love_ before. Indeed, that word itself seems so grossly inadequate in describing the feelings, the _yearnings_ , she churns every moment through him.

But he admits, without rancor, that the girl has her faults. There is a magnitude of things in which she needs constant adjustment, molding. Her past has warped her in so many ways. How can she know what is best for her, without someone to lead her way? Especially now, during what must be one of the most conflicted eras of her life?

A new lifestyle, a pregnancy, a concluded war, decades of trauma… he is sure the burden would overwhelm anyone.

Unless Saya is cared for properly, she may well fall into pieces. And Solomon loves her entirely too much to risk that happening. He cannot imagine his life separated from her, not in any sense. She _needs_ to be protected and kept sheltered, as much for his sake as her own.

 _She'll be made to see reason, of course_. _I'll convince her of it, one way or another._

_After all, it is only what is best for her. I do not want to see her suffer. She has to understand that._

When the meeting is concluded, Solomon makes his way to the elevator, steps muffled by the opulent carpeting. In his pocket, his cellphone trills. He answers without checking the number.

"Hello?"

" _Hel-lo, Solomon. Catch you at a bad time_?"

Solomon steps into the elevator, pushing in his floor number. "Hello, Nathan. Is there anything you wanted to discuss with me?"

" _Oh, nothing too dire. Say, did the maid I sent over meet with your wifey's approval_?"

"Simone? Yes, Saya seems to like her. Although I have to say, she does talk a bit too much—"

" _Oh don't_ you _start._ _You're so picky about every single thing, it's no wonder you can never find good help. Obedience can be instilled, but never enforced, Solomon. I keep telling you that."_

"Yes, of course. Anything else, Nathan?"

" _Well,_ somebody _sure seems pressed for time. What's the matter, Solomon? You sound so wrung-out. Working hard to support the mother of your children? Or…"_ The elder Chevalier's voice drops, smug and insinuating. _"Are you more likely working_ on _the mother of your children, as we speak_?"

"No, Nathan. Saya is back at the hotel in Milan."

" _What do you mean, 'back at'? Where are_ you _? Tsk tsk, Solomon. Talk about ungrateful. After all that carrying-on, you finally bag the girl, and scarcely before the ink on your marriage license is dry, you're already hitting town alone? Not keeping a little dish on the side, are we? Maybe someone to cater to all those messy nasties that we can't ask from our delicate flower back home?_ "

"No. I am in Rome on a business meeting, but I should be returning shortly."

" _Ooh, marvelous._ _That means I can send you tickets."_

"Tickets?"

" _Mmm-hmm. The MITO festival for classical music. Saya should enjoy it. As far as I recall, she has a thing for Mozart, right?"_

"Thank you, Nathan, but I doubt we would have much use for the tickets. Saya has not been feeling that well of late."

Nathan chortles. " _Oh, I get it. You've already hit the 'Not tonight, I have a headache' stage, hm_?"

"It's nothing like that. Just part and parcel of her pregnancy. So thank you, but there's no need." Brow arching, Solomon adds, "Just what sort of tickets are these, by the way? If I were human, I would still have nightmares about the last play you recommended that James and I take Diva to."

_"What? The 'Puppetry of the Penis'? Oh, don't be such a prude. That was an excellent play!"_

"Tell that to James. He would not look me in the eye for weeks afterward."

" _Oh nonsense!_ _I'm sure he enjoyed it almost as much as Diva did."_

"She tried to bite off the... actors, Nathan."

_"Well, I did too, but that's an entirely different story. Good for our Diva, always following her heart. She never dilly-dallied when it came to having a good time."_

"Well, in light of that, I'm afraid I have to look this particular gift horse in the mouth. Incidental generosity isn't like you. Just why are you so keen to share these tickets with me?"

" _Why Solomon, I'm hurt. Intensely wounded, almost to pouting, in fact. It's not like everything I do has to have a sinister ulterior motive._ "

"No, of course not."

Nathan harrumphs mock-tetchily. " _Well, so much for_ your _Nice Jewish Boy routine. But if you're going to be so shamelessly transparent, I may as well tell you the truth. These tickets are not for you. They're for_ Saya! _Not everything's about_ you _, silly boy."_

"Well, I just told you. I doubt Saya will be needing them. But I appreciate the gesture."

" _Aren't you even gonna ask her first?"_

"There is no need."

" _My my, Solomon. Do you blow her nose and tie her shoelaces for her too. Trim her nails, shave her legs, give her a bath..."_

"Very funny, Nathan."

" _We-ell. Since Saya's under the weather, that's really too bad. I was so hoping she'd get to see her musical prodigy in action at last."_

"Musical prodigy?"

" _Yes—Haji, of course. He's participating in the MITO. I was actually surprised as hell when he showed up asking for—what was it—oh yes,"_ Nathan's voice turns exaggeratedly deep and deadpan, _"_ 'something to keep busy on.' _Never thought I'd see the day he'd flounce over to ask_ me _for career advice. Of course, if it were upto me, I'd give Haji_ plenty _of activities to_ ' _keep busy on'. But right now, he's sorta damaged good-sy—I almost can't tell if the boy's coming or going. It's really a waste of delectable manflesh, y'know."_

This makes Solomon stop in his tracks. "Did you say Haji?"

" _Of course I said Haji. Weren't you listening to me for the past ten seconds?"_

"What is Haji doing in Italy?"

" _What are_ you _doing in Rome? He's there to work, of course. He's playing in the classical festival, part of the orchestra. Interested in watching him perform, Solomon?"_

"No, thank you. I was actually planning to head out to Greece in a few days. I doubt Saya and I will be able to make it."

" _Really, Solomon. For an immortal, you're always in such a damn rush! James and Karl were exactly the same way. This is one of the only reasons I miss Amshel. Now there was a man who knew the importance of taking his time. Too bad it didn't get him jack or squat in the end. And don't piss on my back and tell me I'm sweating: I know for a fact that you and Saya_ can _make it. The festival's being held in Milan right now, after all._ _You may just run into him there_."

Solomon blinks. "He's in…Milan?"

" _Yep. You're staying at the Peninsula, right? The main auditorium's not too many streets off. I bet if it's quiet enough at night, you may just hear him howling, "Sayaaa!" outside your window like Marlon fucking Brando. That would be_ quite _a spectacular scene, actually."_ A sigh, followed by the characteristic shutterspeed tone-shift. _"Oh, and by the way, Solomon, how do you say 'Cuckoo' in, um... ze Olde Françoise?"_

"Cuckoo? I believe they called it cuckold, or _—_ " Solomon breaks off at this point, eyes subtly narrowing. "Nathan, are you trying to imply something?"

 _"What? Imply something? Why of course not. I'm just considering a title for my new play; 'Ode to a Cuckoo: Remix version'. Oh well, in the meantime, enjoy Greece—the beaches are just divine this season. Try not to get too much sunburn on your nose or too much sand up your pecker. If you're gonna be Mother Hen to Saya, someone needs to look after_ you _a little too, right, Solomon? You two kids have fun."_

Without another word, Nathan hangs up, leaving Solomon staring at the phone, unable to muster a reply.

But through all that chatter, his inclusive hearing has picked up only one sentence that matters.

_Haji is in Milan._

Suddenly, Solomon has the overwhelming urge to cut his business trip short. As fast as possible.


	16. Unreal

She is definitely not the same.

Her expressions, her gestures, everything about her is a terrible alteration to his memory. One moment she is the Saya he remembers from Okinawa, blushing and guileless. The next, her eyes will shade, somehow more knowing, more enigmatic. She does not quite smell like herself anymore either. All her familiar aromas, which once so intrigued, exhumed him, are mixed with Solomon's now.

In fact, she _reeks_ of the other man, head to toe. Skin, hair, breath. _Every single part of her_.

That knowledgeable air of hers makes Haji uneasy. That unmistakable aroma of sex and discovery she gives off, a fecund haze her pregnancy only seems to enhance. It is enough to make his throat dry up—impossible to look at her without imagining things, indelicate dissolute things he'd never have dared to visualize on the Saya from his memory.

Solomon has fashioned her into something completely suited to his own appetites, something Haji prayed that Saya would never become.

Enchanting as a courtesan, yet with the same morass of misery behind her eyes.

But when she smiles her melting Saya-smile, his misgivings fade all over again.

"This is a perfect spot, Haji. Thanks for bringing me."

He nods.

Sunset casts a scarlet smear across the water before them. Saya takes deep lungfuls of the air, lifting her face to the open sky. The lake before her—Haji tells her it is called _Como_ —seems to stretch on forever. In the distance, the water culminates into mountains, ebbing dark and hazy into the clear sky.

Haji shrugs out of his coat and shirt as Saya asked him to, feeling her gaze upon him like a physical pressure.

Unblushing, she gestures him closer. The sunset strikes twin shards in her eyes. "All right, Haji, now lift me up."

"Lift you—?"

"You know, like you used to when we'd be flying during battles? I want to show you something."

He hesitates, wondering if she is playing a trick on him. Indeed, her presence here may as well be a pustule made flesh. It is a wonder he has not screamed and hurled her into the lake yet.

But then her hand brushes his collarbone—nails painted a racy-red he'd never have associated with her—but the fingers still warm and tiny and _hers._

And suddenly he has no fight left in him.

Obeying, he gently sweeps her up in his arms. No romance in the gesture. He takes care, even as he cradles her to his chest, not to hold her too tight or close. At this proximity, Solomon's scent is more overpowering than ever.

But beneath, the skin warming her clothes, infusing his chilled palms like a tingling balm, is still _Saya's_.

Drawing her closer, subtly so she may not notice, he asks, "Saya, are you sure about this?"

"Mm-hm. It'll be fun. Trust me, Haji. It's a good idea to put your muscles to different uses now and then."

"You certainly seem confident no one will catch us."

"I am. This is a perfect spot. You'll like this. Believe me."

He pauses a moment, considering.

Then promptly steps off the cliff they stand on. The _whoosh_ of wind and outrushing black wings cuts off his misgivings.

As they plunge down, he feels that familiar rush of vertigo—the roar of wind in his ears, the breathless emptiness all through his body. Then his wings snap outward, catching the right currents in the wind, gliding, steadying, before a single noiseless flap sends them swooping down to the lake.

Eager, Saya takes in the view around them, fingers tightening around his neck. He swallows, unable to not tighten his grip on her in turn. Unable to stop from breathing in the scent of shampoo clinging to her fluttering hair, relishing the strong gusts of her breath against his skin.

Inside, he is already counting backwards, a silent _three-two-one_ , waiting for the expected lightning-bolt to scorch him to cinder.

Never imagined that he'd meet her this way, be allowed so near her, battening so freely on her warmth.

Giddy on the towering height, Saya giggles and cranes her neck toward the water. Wanting to get a closer look, to skim her fingertips across its surface. In wordless understanding, Haji sails lower. He can see both their rippling reflections in the water. It is mesmeric, surreal, as though gazing into an ever-flowing mirror.

Perspective tilts, vertical altering to horizontal. But there is no disquiet to the sensation.

He wouldn't have dared to imagine that his wings, once a source of shameful terror in Saya, could bring her any delight.

Reaching out, Saya's fingers dance across the water's edge, infusing it with serpent-trails. A laugh tumbles from her lips. Haji catches it before he can help himself, throat vibrating in a soundless chuckle.

So strange, that she can be so high up with him, unmoored from gravity, but still look so at peace.

Then she leans closer to him, so close Haji can almost taste her breath on his lips. Close enough that if he leans in, he can alter that warm breath to sweeter flesh.

"Watch this, Haji."

And abruptly, her weight vanishes from his arms, a blue streak cannonballing for the lake.

Haji's eyes widen. "Saya!"

She plunges through the air, hair undulating like snakes.

"Come on, Haji!"

His reflexes are faster than his voice. Even as he shouts her name, he is diving to catch her before she crashes into the water.

But she never does.

Barely a split-second before her body touches the water's surface, she twists and streaks forward, a zigzag movement like lightning. Cutting a path across the water, between one blink and the next, casting barely a ripple behind. Hair flying like the tail of a fantastic black comet, she arcs in a skipping-stone's trajectory over the lake, too quick for gravity to snatch, too light for the water to draw in.

Haji watches her, stunned. He has seen her move at that velocity before. But always in battle, always amid flying sprays of blood. Never dreamed that she would use her own preternatural speed for _sport_.

He has no idea if this change is of her own accord, or from _Solomon's_ influence.

Then her eyes meet his between one leap and the next. Her expression makes him think of their games in the Zoo, when they'd pretend to be leopards and fawns chasing each other amid the maze of trees.

And he understands, with a shock, she means for him to chase _her_.

Haji has not used his wings for anything strenuous since the war ended. Their muscles are brittle as dried wax. But Saya's expression seems to fuel them, warming and smoothing each dip and sinew so that he plummets for her without realizing it.

It is incredible to watch her. Her eyes flash like rubies between each hazy glimpse, body streaking in an ephemeral blur across the lake. He is reminded of those reptiles he once saw on his travels, that race so fast over the water that they seem to be skating over its surface.

He swoops overhead like a massive incoming falcon, his shadow stretching huge and distorted in the lake. Wind washing through his hair, stirring at his clothes and skin as he tries to intercept Saya.

She laughs and evades without effort. Her coordination and grace are perhaps slower since her pregnancy, but still veritable enough to challenge his own. They evade and dart together like two mythical creatures engaged in some ritualistic pursuit. Looping and weaving in blurred figure-eights, above and across the crimson lake. Simple scenery transformed into a watery playground.

Every time Haji comes close to catching her, every time his fingers almost graze her skin, she jets like wind from his reach. It is frustrating, exhilarating. He grins before he can help himself, urging himself faster, beating his wings sharper.

Once, twice, he almost corners her. But then she shrieks and swoops out of his way. In the distance, the glow of villas speckle the shoreline. Their lights twinkle in the water, which deepens from red to dreamy purple as the sun sinks beneath the horizon.

The view around him feels unreal, yet hypnotic in its clarity—as if he can see every shimmering stream, discern every individual scent and sound. The powerful snap of his own wings, the sloshing _whoosh_ of Saya's body across the water, supplanting the heady aroma of twilight in the air.

Hasn't felt this _alive_ since Saya's absence.

He seizes her abruptly, as if goaded by this realization, pulling her against his chest. She gives a startled squeak, gripping his arms, but makes no move to escape. The tips of his shoes skim along the lake as he prepares to descend, wings lowering, shifting flat against the wind, controlling the speed of their drop.

Cool water sprays across their skin, clustering pindot stars in their hair. Saya raises her hand to deflect the spray, an unexpected laugh tripping from her lips. It feels like they are floating across the water, soaring without weight. No fear of stopping or slowing, no threat of sinking down.

Pressed close to him again, her scent is all _Saya_ now, with the faintest flicker of his own.

He could hold her to him this way, her heat more radiant than any bonfire, and need nothing more.

Saya's lips brush the crook of his neck. "Looks like you won."

He answers before he can stop himself. "You know I haven't won anything since you have been gone."

She pales, eyes dropping from his. "I guess… you didn't enjoy that, then?"

His arms tighten around her in response. Telling her, without words, what he truly _has_ enjoyed about this experience most of all.

* * *

Simone is rearranging the cacophony of books in Solomon's study when the phone rings on his desk.

She answers hesitantly, hoping it is not the monsieur. She doesn't know why her mistress hasn't returned yet, but her husband's calls are growing increasingly frequent and interrogative. She is unsure how long the _taking a nap_ excuse will hold out.

With a deep breath, she answers. "Hello?"

"Simone, is Saya awake yet?" Monsieur Goldsmith never bothers to identify himself on the phone. Everyone working under him knows who is speaking by that subtle tone of command in his voice.

Simone swallows. "No, monsieur. She is still—"

"Still taking her nap? Good grief, Simone, what did she ingest? Sleeping pills?"

"No—no, sir. She said she was just very tired, so—"

"Well, never mind. When your mistress wakes, please inform her that I phoned, and tell her to call me back. Is that clear?"

"Y-Yes, sir."

"That's all. I will be returning shortly, so please finish cleaning up my study before I do. "

A crisp _click_ signals the dismissal.

Simone takes a relieved breath, returning the phone to its cradle. Inwardly, she curses the young madame for dragging her into this. If her employer finds out what is going on, she'll be without a job. And when is Miss Saya going to get back, anyway? It is already—

"On second thought, perhaps you should leave off cleaning my study for another day."

Simone whirls with a small shriek, hand on her heart.

Solomon is standing right before her, hands slipped carelessly into his trouser pockets, making his jacket flare out over his hips. He is smiling, but the smile does not reach his eyes.

"M-Monsieur. I thought you were—"

"Still in Rome? I lied. But in my defense, I thought my wife was still at the hotel. Which she is not. I just checked her room, too. The bed has not been slept in since this morning."

"That—that's only—"

"Now, now. No excuses, Simone. I think it is quite clear you were lying to me. And that your mistress put you up to it."

"S-sir, you don't understand. I—"

"I believe we'll leave those explanations for later. Right now, I would like to know one thing." Solomon tilts his head, voice soft and chilling. "Precisely where has my wife snuck off to?"

* * *

They have settled themselves by the edge of the lake, water occasionally lapping at their feet. Saya has taken her shoes off, but Haji seems disinclined to. The sun has vanished. The sky is a panoply of stars, washing everything in ethereal white and blue.

Her muscles still sing from their waterside chase. Sighing, Saya runs languid fingers though the grass. She knows she ought to be returning to the hotel, but she can't make herself move. She almost wants to drop off to sleep. God knows, she'd done that enough during the war, just dozed off by a tree or in a barn, under Haji's ever-watchful eye.

Haji, who is perched on a mossy boulder beside her, his chest like a marble shield in the starlight. The play of light and shadows casts two bright points along his shoulders.

Saya regards him with a smile. "We... should have done this together after the war ended, you know. It was lots of fun."

Haji blinks, uncomfortable. "I would not have considered it back then."

"Why not?"

He gives her a strange look. And it hits her:

_No. Of course he wouldn't have._

_After all, I used to be_ afraid _of his wings._

It still startles her, how much things between them have changed. How much they _keep on_ changing, as the years go by. From his genesis as that sullen little boy who was a perpetual thorn in her side, to a taller, more talented rival cellist, to a grim war-comrade and a loyal protector, to a brief but devoted paramour, to...

She has no idea what they are to each other now.

 _Friends_. _He said we were friends._

 _In a way, even when everything else kept changing, that's one thing we never_ stopped _being._

"You... certainly seem more confident about your Chiropteran nature now," Haji remarks.

His tone makes it hard to tell whether he is wary, or curious.

"I...I wouldn't call it confident, exactly."

"Before this, I doubt you would have thought of flying that way with me."

"Well, maybe it was because... there were so many other things on my mind back then. And during the war, we really had no time for fun and games. But I've... had a lot of time to try different things these few months."

"So you usually do this with Solomon?"

Saya winces, wind stirring her hair into her face. She lifts a hand, to brush them off, and shield her eyes from Haji's gaze. "Um, yes. I have, actually."

More than a dozen times, she's seen him slip into full Chiropteran form, by a deserted beach or lake. Usually late at night and under full moonlight. Wrapped herself, after some coaxing on his part, like a kudzu-vine around his back, and let him cart her through the air as if on a flying carpet.

He always loves to show her, how much delight can be gained from being a Chiropteran. Always likes to remind her, how much these humans—and by extension, _she_ —have been missing out on.

And she enjoys a lot of the things he's shown her, she won't deny. She has never realized before, how each of her senses, from sight, to sound and touch, can be used not as tools, but as a means of constant discovery and excitement.

He has taught her how to discern when dawn will crest the horizon, just by the flavor of the night air. Taught her how to detect, with a simple inhalation, whether there are people closeby, and what age and shape and gender they could be. When the lady beside them on a plane has last dyed her hair. What sweets the little girl skipping ahead of them has munched. Whose bed the man on the adjacent table has slept in, and after doing what.

Things that have stunned and often disturbed her, but which she admits she would never have considered before.

But this constant wellspring of sensation is often overwhelming. She can never escape the sense, whenever she's with Solomon, of being somehow swamped. Drowning out of sight.

Not so with Haji. If there's one thing she feels by Chevalier's side, it is confident of her own being. Sublime in its certainty.

"We've… flown together, yes," she says. "But it's not the same thing."

"What do you mean?"

"Well... the proportions are all different, for one. I have to piggyback him, because his wings don't grow out of his back. And there's really nothing for me to hold onto except his hair. I'm almost afraid sometimes that I'll yank too hard and tear it off."

"So you did that with me to compare notes?"

"What? N-no, of course not. I just—" God, is _that_ what it had seemed like to him? "No, Haji. I just... wanted to try something new with you. But if it... bothered you, if my being here is upsetting you, I can go."

Haji falters, eyes softening. "No, Saya. This is perfectly fine."

"Are you sure? Because if there's somewhere else you have to be, then—"

His lips curve just the slightest. Yet the gesture buoys her like a sail filled with wind. "You know there is nowhere else I would want to be right now, Saya."

Smiling back, she swipes off a smear of lakewater glittering on his shoulderblade. It is a light gesture. But Haji jerks as if burned. Suddenly self-conscious, he reaches for his coat and shirt, lying folded beside him, shrugging them back on.

"What's wrong? Are you cold?"

"No, but…"

"But what?"

"As far as I remember, there was once a time when you scolded me for appearing in a similar state in front of you. In Russia, with 'mixed company', I believe."

Saya catches the dry undertone to his voice. Her eyes twinkle mischievously. "That was a long time ago, Haji. We both really weren't any better than children back then. And if I told you about the beaches I've been to these few months, the things I've seen people pass for swimsuits there, you'd wish we still had bathing machines, like they had in our time."

"Bathing machines." With a faint smile, Haji shakes his head. "Sometimes I almost miss those things."

"I certainly don't. Flouncing to sea in a giant canvas shed, just to hide balloony swimwear from so-sensitive eyes?"

"Perhaps it was cumbersome compared to today's clothing. But it was considered proper etiquette for the era."

"Well, I'm a married woman, now. Trust me when I tell you I have seen a gentleman in a state of extreme _dishabille_."

Haji winces. She realizes, with an internal curse, what images she has planted in his mind.

_God._

_I keep doing this to him. I keep on hurting him, being so thoughtless._

_I'm so stupid. So so stupid…_

Solomon tells her, in moments of severe frustration, that she has a tendency to not just _poke the sleeping bear, but perform a full-blown foxtrot on its back in her highheels._ And perhaps he has a point.

Shaking her head, she whispers, "Haji, I—I apologize. Everything I say to you seems to end up sounding wrong. I didn't mean it like that. I was only—"

"Saya, it is all right. I… know how you meant it." Haji gives her a bemused look. "When exactly did you begin to phrase yourself this way?"

"Hm?"

"You have… you have started talking differently now. Almost like—"

_Almost like Solomon._

Saya hears the sentence clearly in his ensuing silence. Wincing, she glances away. "Things have…things have changed now, I guess. We can't expect everyone to stay the same."

"I suppose not."

"But… _you_ haven't changed, Haji."

"What?"

"You—you're exactly as you were before. No real difference at all."

"Were you expecting there to be one?" She hears the latent bitterness in his voice.

She flinches, not so much out of hurt, as in the knowledge that his acrimony is more than warranted. She can't expect to meet him this way, impose on his new life after her own abandonment, and not expect lingering hostility.

"I'm sorry, Haji. I didn't mean _that_ the way it sounded either. I just meant that I'm... glad to see you're okay."

Haji's eyes shifts to hers, cool at first, but gradually softening. "Saya, wait. There is no need to—"

"No, I... I understand. You're angry with me. You have every reason to be. But I just wish—I wish we could move past that. I know I have no right to ask for it …but I just wish you'd forgive me for all this, even if I know I don't deserve it. Just so... we could be friends again."

"Saya, I told you before. We have never stopped being friends."

She shakes her head. "No. We aren't friends. How can we be? Friends don't do what I did to you—no friend would stand for all the things I made you go through. I know how angry you must be with me. But, sometimes I still wish things between us were the same. Because then, at least you'd... still be a part of my life."

Haji's eyes widen. But before he can speak, her own words gush out in a splatter. "I know. I know I told you that this is the life I wanted. I know I have no one to blame for all this but myself. But even so, I can't stop wishing, sometimes, that I-I could take it all back. I can't stand knowing how much I put you through. I wish I could find some way to make it upto you. Except—except I—"

"Saya…"

She tries to ward him off. But Haji is right beside her, his prior distance abruptly forgotten. A pair of thin white arms wrap around her, cool hard buffer of chest against her cheek—a familiar terrain she instinctively finds herself cleaving to.

He holds her to him, gently stroking at her hair, even as she shudders over and over, struggling against sobs. Why? Why can't she stop crying? Wasn't once earlier today more than enough? Grief seems to bloom from some deep recess within her, pushing at her lungs, crushing them so she fights to breathe, so she gasps on sobs.

For a good ten minutes, she can only sit there, head against Haji's chest, and cry into his cool flesh as though he is a wall she is pressed against. When she has calmed down at last, breathing in hiccoughs, Haji gently takes her chin. His gaze is mild, querying.

"Saya… please tell me the truth? What is bothering you?"

"It's…it's nothing, Haji. I'm just so... surprised to see you, that's all. I've been missing you so long—and suddenly you're right in front of me, and it feels like nothing's changed at all. Except I know it has, and it keeps hitting me when I least expect it. I can't stand what I've done to you, but—"

"Saya. Ssh."

She dabs roughly at her burning eyes. "I'm so sorry. I'm being such a crybaby. Just when I tell myself that I can be strong, I just fall apart all over again. It's really so disgusting, how broken up I am."

"It is not disgusting at all, Saya. If I were in your place, I would be more worried if you froze up inside. If you did not feel any grief at all. Then you truly _would_ have been broken."

His eyes, when he says this, are so sad. They fix upon her face as though there is nowhere else for him to look.

She suddenly wishes he were smiling again.

"Saya," he presses. "Please tell me the truth? What is bothering you?"

She hiccoughs, wiping her face again. "Nothing, Haji. What... could bother me, when I'm here by a pretty lake, with no one to disturb me for miles around?"

He picks up the poor stab at humor, an eyebrow arching gently. "Why? Doesn't Solomon take you to places like these every minute?"

"He does, but—"

But Solomon isn't about the little things in life.

Her husband is all about waltzing her under the stars and carpeting the length of her room in roses and having races at breakneck speed across the shoreline at dawn. But never something as simple as walk on the beach; never a solitary flower, or a harmless kiss on the cheek. He lives for impossible office hours and impromptu trips to exotic locations; for exquisite damask sheets and drenching every inch of her in Chianti and leisurely kisses. Moonlit promenades over plummeting skyscrapers; playing airborne tag amid the branches of towering redwoods.

But never a simple trip to see a movie. Never two glasses of wine and a quiet game of cards in the evening.

Never anything, really, that is even remotely related to the innocuous, the _human_.

Which is what Saya has spent so much of her life struggling toward.

Sighing, she whispers, "Haji, Solomon is doing his best to be good to me, all right? Please, lets just leave it at that."

"But you told me that you—"

"That we fought? I know, but why make such a big fuss about it? Everyone fights from time to time. It... it doesn't mean anything."

Haji looks as though he might persist. But to her relief, he lets the subject drop. She feels move to release her—but something gleaming at her throat stops him short.

"You are... wearing the bloodstone?"

"Huh?" She feels his eyes track to her amulet. Self-conscious, she touches it with her fingertips. "Oh. I…I didn't realize I'd put it on today. I usually just carry it in my pocket."

"You still keep it with you?"

"Mm. It's like my…lucky charm, you could say."

Haji smiles faintly, but does not answer. Reaching out, he straightens the necklace, a gesture that makes her abruptly conscious of nothing except how the light chain feels against her throat.

How it barely divides her prickling flesh from Haji's cool fingertips.

Flushing, she drops her gaze. With equal suddenness, Haji withdraws his hand. In the electric stillness that ensues, Saya realizes she must leave, before something happens here that might be iniquitous and wholly irretrievable.

"Haji, I…I should go now."

"What—?"

"I have to get back to the hotel. I've completely lost track of time. I wasn't supposed to stay out this long."

He nods. "Of course. Will you let me walk you back?"

"Um... okay. Sure."

She accepts his proffered hand, but can't meet his eyes. Haji, in turn, releases her almost as soon as she is standing.

All the way to town, she keeps her silence, and Haji his distance. There seems to be a barrier between them now, whether intentional or imagined—neither of them dares to initiate contact or conversation, as if poised on opposite ends of a leaking boat.

The streets of downtown Milan are brightly-lit, a plethora of traffic and pedestrians; she and Haji blend in without exception. During the war, they traveled so often this way through bustling cities and towns. She remembers it so clearly. Drifting side-by-side through vast crowds, senses alert for looming Chiropterans. Haji hefting his cello case on one shoulder, Saya gripping her sword between tight fingers.

But Haji walks empty-handed beside her now; the only thing adorning Saya's fingers is her wedding ring—a diamond solitaire more costly and cumbersome than any bloodstained katana.

They stop one lane away from her hotel, under the intimate circle of a streetlamp. Saya hesitates, struggling for something to say. She knows she must bid Haji goodbye now—but the idea feels so foreign to her, almost akin to tearing away her own shadow.

She once read a book, at the Zoo, about creatures who existed without shadows. Lost souls damned to a terrible purgatory, wandering in a world where no one could see or hear them again.

And she wonders, as she opens her mouth to speak, why she feels that way now.

"Thanks for seeing me back, Haji. And for…for taking me to that lake. I really liked it."

Haji inclines his head. With his dark clothing and solemn features, he almost resembles some metropolitan angel, poised solitary and allegorical amid the crowd.

 _He may as well be a guardian angel_. _He was mine for over a century._

_But no more._

Giving herself a mental shake, she moves to quit their streetlit circle—but stops when she is abreast of him. Leaning up on tiptoe, she looks right into his face. "Haji?"

Her Chevalier goes perfectly still. She can almost feel him holding his breath, as though wary of inhaling the air around her. "Yes, Saya?"

"Thank you. So much. Not just for spending the day with me. But for just… for just being here. For listening to me. Even after everything I've done to you, you're still the one who's comforting me. Even at a time like this. And I know…I never really said it to you, but when we were fighting the war, you always made things better for me. In ways I didn't realize, until a long time later."

"Saya—"

"You said, before, that everyone deserves to be happy. Even me. But Haji…I-I want you to be happy too. I want you to find that one thing that'll make you happy. Whatever it might be."

"That does not matter to me, Saya. Not as long as I know—"

"Know what? That I'm happy?" She shakes her head. Her throat is tight, but she needs to say this. "It's not like that anymore. You may be my Chevalier, but you were my friend first. In a way, you never stopped being one. Which is why I want you to…not…be alone. To not feel sad. It really matters to me, knowing if you're going to be all right. I still care so much about you, Haji. You know that."

Haji's eyes are soft, contemplative. "I am finding my way, the same as you are, Saya. There is so much we both need to work our way through. We… need time, to seek some sort of recourse. But we will get through this. Nothing is irreparable."

"You really think so?"

He closes his eyes. "I have no choice but to believe it."

Saya pauses, then reaches out to touch his cheek. His skin is cool and smooth against her fingertips, like the surface of her bloodstone. She is startled when he responds to the gesture, lifting his hand to cover hers.

Her whole body seems to contract to that point, as though she is alive nowhere else except where pale cool fingers overlay small warm ones. Their eyes meet, and suddenly it is like rushing back to that night in the MET. The scent of blood and rain strong in her nose, longed-for death a bitter taste in her mouth.

Back to that long unbroken look that hid nothing, that said it all.

She feels herself inching closer on instinct, tips of her shoes brushing Haji's boots, and then he suddenly leans in, and their foreheads touch. His hair stirs like whispering tendrils at her cheeks; she tastes his cool contemplative breath on her lips, in a ghostly vardøger to the memory of his mouth.

So unexpectedly, terribly missed.

"Saya…" he murmurs, and she leans closer without thought, as if to absorb the flavor of that word on her tongue.

At once, a flaming disquiet fills her, as though right now, she is being unfaithful to Solomon.

_Solomon._

_Oh no._

Flinching, Saya jerks away. "Haji, I-I really should get going. I'm sorry."

Haji looks away, a thin vein ticking on his jaw. "I understand, Saya."

She takes a breath. "It was so good though. Running into you here. I'm glad for that. Glad I got to talk to you again. I'm happy that you... seem to be okay."

He nods, but doesn't meet her gaze. His voice is soft:

"Please take care of yourself, Saya."

She heads for the hotel, leaving him standing where he is, watching her go. Every step feels colossal, as if dragging her feet through swamp. Every instinct screams for her to turn back, grab onto her Chevalier as though to dry solid land.

When she stops at the gate of the hotel, turning around, Haji has disappeared.

But her skin still burns where it touched his. The bloodstone is cool and distinct on her neck, almost like a lingering caress.


	17. Hollow

She returns to the hotel, furtive as a thief.

The chauffeur is still missing. She wonders if her shopping-list took him all the way to the other side of town. She hopes so. It would serve him right for shadowing her at every point she goes out, and reporting it to Solomon like her jailor.

_I hope he goes wandering all the way to Siberia._

The suite is empty when she steps in. Simone is nowhere in sight. Saya wonders if she has retired to her room. She wants to ask her if Solomon called, and what he asked about her. But when Saya pokes her head in after two unanswered knocks, Simone's room is vacant; her coat and shoes are missing.

_Maybe she's gone out to get something. That's probably it._

Sighing, Saya deposits her bag on the table and shuffles to her own room. She wants to take a hot soak before the doctor arrives. Her muscles feel stiff and knotted, like twisted pieces of cardboard.

In a way, it is dismaying to realize that the girl who once battled night after night, who traveled from city to city with no more than her sword at hand, is now exhausted by a playful lakeside romp.

 _How the mighty have… diluted,_ drawls a voice the faintest bit like Haji's—back in those years when neither of them were callused by responsibility, and laughter still came without a price attached.

They had been so happy, once upon a time. Content and thrilled with nothing but each other, with the possibilities that awaited them beyond the Zoo's walls.

_When I'm all grown up, I'll finally be able to leave this place and travel across the entire world._

_And you'll come with me too, Haji. Promise me._

Saya winces.

Despite her usual tendency for refutation, she admits she hasn't stopped thinking about Haji since their meeting.

She has tried so hard to avoid remembering him the past months. But now, seeing him in person has struck an arcane arpeggio within her. Her entire body resonates, flooding with sense-memory. The smell of pinewood and attar of roses from the Zoo, the knots of fear and hunger in her belly during their years in the war. The warmth and laughter they once shared, before carnage pushed that era to the back of their minds.

They had both endured so much, side-by-side. Made so many sacrifices for a cause that, even when finally attained, was to herald their deaths.

But how strange and miraculous, that even then, she and Haji had found hope in each another.

Found _love_.

Saya shudders.

_I shouldn't be thinking about this now. What good would it do? I left him because it was better that way. He'd never have been happy, if I'd stayed with him. I would have kept on hurting him. It was for his own good._

_After everything I made him go through, it was the least I could do. I loved him too much to hurt him._

But why then, does that statement wobble so on its foundations? Why, after spending all these months untroubled by justifications, does she suddenly feel so shaky and unsure?

Why does she feel like a wayward child who has run away from home and is regretting it now?

_What's wrong with you? It's too late to go back now. You've made your decision already. So has he. Otherwise he might have stopped you from leaving. But he didn't. Not when you were about to marry Solomon, and not out there in the street._

_Because he's resigned himself to reality. Accepted your final choice._

_More so than you._

Her hand travels instinctively to her belly, to the twofold lives burgeoning within. Tiny beings that fuse her to this new life, to Solomon, in a way that not even her ties to Haji can sever.

A reminder, that it is truly too late for any backtracking now.

_You're just confused because you've seen Haji after a long time, that's all. It's just nostalgia. You didn't except to see him here, and because you've been missing him so long, it caught you off guard._

_That's all there is to it. Plain and simple._

Stepping out of her heels, she enters her room without switching the lights on. Drawn to the window, she parts the blinds to peer at the street below. Cars crawling down narrow road-ribbons; a systematic flicker of neon signs. The city looks stunning from this bird's eye-view. An overturned jewelbox of diamonds and rubies.

Perhaps, when Solomon returns, they can have a race across the skyscrapers? She promises not to mind him cheating; as long as he promises things will work out between them. As long as they will put this recent animosity behind them, and go on as they always have—two beings held rapt by each other, living entirely for themselves and the moment.

Then a light snaps on, flashing a reflection in the glass before her, bathed in gold glow.

Solomon.

"I see you've returned," he says coolly.

Stunned, Saya whirls. "W-what? Solomon, you've—"

"Come back early? It appears I had good reason to."

He is half-hidden in shadow, tips of hair frosted in brilliant gold. Clad in a black suit almost identical to the one he wore, decades back, when she woke up naked and disoriented at his apartment—entire body humming with tension from his proximity.

That same tension shoots across Saya's spine now. Solomon's voice holds a chilling softness.

"I don't suppose it occurred to you, that even if you send your bodyguard on counterfeit shopping errands, the hotel security is still fully aware of your movements? Or that, inclined as the maid may be to lie about your whereabouts—she will tell the truth in circumstances that leave her without a job."

"Wh-what?" Saya struggles to grasp what he is saying. "You… fired Simone?"

"If she could lie so easily to her employer, there are certainly a million other liberties she'd have taken under my nose. But more importantly, she is no longer your concern. Tell me exactly where you have been—and with whom."

"With whom? What're you—" Her confusion clears; she understands what he is implying. "Oh. Oh my god, Solomon—no! It's not like that! I was just—"

"You lied about where you were, sent away the bodyguard, and snuck out despite my specific instructions to the contrary. Come now, Saya. It requires no effort to put two and two together."

"N-no! You don't understand! Why would I go out to see anyone else? I don't even know anyone here! I was just—"

" _'Don't know anyone?_ ' Saya, you must _really_ take me for a fool." A lightning-flash, and he is suddenly right before her, pressing her back against the wall. His face is incandescent with wrath, like the color of his eyes, with that same sheen of ice-green radiance.

"I know perfectly well that you went out to see Haji. I know that he is here in town. I can practically smell him on you. I can see the reality of it all over your face."

"What? Solomon—it's not like that! I wasn't—"

"—Wasn't with him? You expect me to believe that? I know exactly how you look whenever you think about him. You call for him enough times in your sleep that I have to grind my teeth each night to keep from shaking you awake and ripping him out of your mind as he deserves to be."

Jolted by his frigid allegations, she stammers, "S-Solomon, how do you know that Haji's—?"

"In Milan? That is none of your concern. I cannot believe that the moment I was gone, you crept off to find him. I wonder, Saya—if I had not come back, would you have stayed with him the whole night? Would you have returned in the morning, and lied as smoothly as a saint about where you had been?"

"What?" Heat rushes to her cheeks. "How can you _say_ something like that to me? Have I given you any reason to think I was out with Haji to—"

"I told you before, Saya; do _not_ take me for a fool. If you were not doing anything wrong, you'd never have lied about where you were. Absolutely nothing, at this point, will acquit you in my eyes."

"Solomon, no! You've got it all wrong! I only sent the chauffeur out because I was tired of him tailing me everywhere! I wanted to be by myself! And I didn't know I'd run into Haji! It was completely accidental! I was just—"

He silences her with a coldly-upraised hand. "Do. Not. Try that. I asked Simone why you took off, and after some persuasion, I learnt that you'd hurried out only after hearing Haji was at the MITO. To find him, and do whatever it is you clearly went to him for—"

" _No_! It's not true! Even if I _did_ hear he was in town, I didn't head out to find him! I just—"

"I wonder if you are aware, Saya, how you contradict yourself with every breath. Has your past so twisted you that you cannot tell the difference between truth and lies? Or between right and wrong?"

This ignites her, a searing flash. "What? How _dare_ you! After everything _you've_ done, after all the women _you've_ been with before me, you have the nerve to accuse _me_ of being unfaithful!"

Solomon's eyes narrow, green darkening almost completely to black. Slowly, he leans forward, herding her against the wall. His sudden proximity makes her aware, as if for the first time, of how much taller he is. She has a flash of the only other time he loomed over her this way—that day at the Zoo, on the stone bridge.

His expression is identical to that moment. Bloodcurdling in its icy calm.

"Do not have the gall to blackmail me, Saya. That was in the past, and I have not once, even for a moment, backpedaled to that era. If you think you can guilt me into overlooking your filthy duplicity by heaping lies upon lies—"

"Duplicity? Solomon, no! Please, you have it all wrong! I admit I snuck out without telling you—but it's not what you think! I was just—"

"Eager to run into the arms of your Chevalier, the moment the coast was clear?" He tilts his head, regarding her in a way that makes her feel dirty and childish and naked to boot. "You obviously told him where we were. There is no way his presence here is a coincidence. But I swear this to you, Saya; when I get my hands on him, I am going to—"

" _No_! Haji has nothing to do with this! You're not coming near him! I _forbid_ you to!"

His eyes flicker with a hint of red. "Are you _dictating_ terms to me, you insolent little baggage? I am amazed you even have the audacity to look me in the eye and spin lies upon lies after you've just—"

"Solomon, no! _Please_ stop talking to me this way!" Desperation seizes her; she grabs his arm. His flesh is hot and crackling under the material of his suit. "I swear to you, I haven't done anything wrong! If you'd just sit down and listen to me, you'd understand Haji and I weren't—"

He jerks out of her grasp. "Weren't what? Weren't doing what every Queen always keeps a spare Chevalier within reach for? Doing what you'd have all the more reason to seek from Haji, since you had no other channel for your frustrations—"

"My _frustrations_? God, how you can say these things to me!" Tears burn her eyes. She tries to blink them away. "I swear! I haven't been unfaithful to you! Even if I did go to meet Haji, why would you have any reason to think that—"

"After how clear each detail is, I refuse to believe a single word from out of your mouth. I devoted absolutely everything I had to you, yet nothing, in any sense, seems to be good enough. But I will tell you one thing, Saya: I will not play this game of second-fiddles and favorites with another Chevalier, depending on your mood. Not now, or ever again."

_Second-fiddles and favorites…_

_What is he—?_

It hits her then, with a staggering shock, where Solomon's acrimony stems from.

 _Diva_.

Her twin sister, who never loved any of her Chevaliers, who never seemed to give them the intimacy and security they so desired. Diva, who'd been raised so devoid of love or security herself, that she couldn't possibly lavish these absent feelings on anyone else. Her Chevaliers had been her knights and lovers, her sons and servants, tied to her by blood. But never by that empathy that came to friends.

Solomon's voice echoes through her head, from that moonlit night when Phantom died:

_I may just be…very lonely too._

And abruptly, she clues in on the missing piece to this whole puzzle. Why all of Diva's Chevaliers were driven to such extremes by their isolation. Why Karl rode that fanatical obsession with dying at her hand, why James was always so desperate in seeking Diva's approval.

Why Solomon devoted everything in his life, with such totality, to his sworn enemy.

In the bleak tedium of their lives, an eternity of solitude so flat and gray, this sublime height of passion was all they had left. It was the only thing they could exist for, devoid as they were of goals or hope or death—and they immersed themselves in it to the hilt. A passion that was so powerful that it gained more importance than even the object of their devotion.

It gave them a reason to feel something. It gave them a fuel to exist on.

And it is also, Saya realizes, why she feels so out of place in this new life with Solomon. Why she is always so lonely, so fixated on _Haji_. Whatever else she and Haji were to each other, they were friends, first and foremost. They always understood one another, understood flaws and desires, in a way that she can never seem to do with Solomon.

That unspoken cohesion, the _trust_ that still makes her and Haji as intimate as kindred—it has no room amid the spiraling heat between her and Solomon—a heat that makes even her deathwish during the war pale in comparison.

"Solomon, stop," she whispers. "This… isn't about me at all, is it?"

He stiffens imperceptibly. "What are you talking abou—"

"I-I think I understand now. You feel like…this is going to be the same as how it was with Diva. That I'm…never really going to see you, _really_ see you, for who you are. That I'll never have any room for just you."

"Have you have completely lost your mind, Saya? You know full-well this has nothing to do with—"

But his vehemence only makes her more certain of the truth. Forging ahead, Saya steps closer. Her eyes are still wet with tears, but their presence is forgotten amid this blinding epiphany.

"Solomon... it's all right. I-I understand why you're so angry. I really do. Didn't you say yourself, back in the war, what it was all about? Why you wanted to help me at all? Because you were lonely? Diva never really seemed to need you or any of the others—and you think it's going to be the same way with us."

Solomon freezes. His expression reminds her of that night on Christina Island, when he leaked out information on Diva's whereabouts and she asked him flat-out why he was helping her. Hair falling into his eyes, lips parted in an unstudied surprise that makes him look like a choirboy.

Then, he averts his face, gaze shaded. The tension across his frame seems to inexplicably diffuse.

Hesitant, Saya steps closer to him. "Solomon, _please_ stop thinking this way about me. About us. It's not the same thing. I didn't go to see Haji for…for any of the reasons you're thinking. I'll admit it was childish of me to sneak off that way, but it was only because I was tired of how you were walling me in. That's all. Please, you have to believe me."

He does not answer. His whole body is inert, all energy depleted.

Despite everything he has said to her—perhaps even because of it—Saya feels an unwanted stab of sympathy for him. Her body is drawn to his almost on instinct, one tentative hand touching the lapel of his coat, then sliding up to cup his jaw.

Solomon closes his eyes, exhaling shakily. But he does not thread his arms around her as she expects him to. His mind seems to hang in some alternate plane of reality, completely removed from her reach.

"Solomon... sweetheart." She has never called him that before. She is surprised by how gently the word rolls off her tongue. "Please, you have to trust me. I'm not lying to you. _Please_."

Her bare feet brush the tips of his shoes; leaning close, she strains for his mouth with the fervor of an amnesty. As though, by kissing him, she might be able to impart her message clearer than words ever can. The best way she and Solomon can communicate what flows between them, inscribing paragraphs and parables of such eloquent intensity, an ink of sensation on the parchment of flesh.

Then the world spins upside-down—Saya finds herself swept up, none-too-gently, and flung to the bed like a ragdoll. The mattress softens her thudding impact; she lies there for a moment, dazed. Solomon doesn't look at her; his lips are pursed as if her very presence is a pulsing carbuncle.

In an eye-blink, he swoops past the door, which closes behind him with a cold _click_.

At once, Saya is on her feet, dashing after him. Infuriated at being manhandled this way, frantic for him to hear the truth, to be clear on the situation. But the door impedes her path, solid as a barricade; the knob refuses to turn.

Jerking on it repeatedly, Saya freezes, confusion seeping through her, followed by numb incredulity.

No.

 _No_.

It can't be.

Solomon has just locked her in.

* * *

Glittering shards of eyes and cracked porcelain skulls.

Shreds of froth and ribbons of torn hair.

The dolls are scattered helter-scelter on the plush oriental carpet. Arms and legs here, mouths and noses there. Solomon watches Diva dig through the carnage like a scavenger.

Eyes closed, she brings one brittle torso to her ear, gently shaking it as though checking for a pulse.

 _"All hollow,"_ she laments. _"Listen to that. All of them are hollow. Completely empty. Can you hear all that nothing inside them, Solomon? It's so loud, I can barely hear myself singing."_

 _"Diva."_ In a tone of tender reproach, Solomon kneels beside her, prying the torso from his Queen's pale hands _. "Diva, my love, you really shouldn't have done that. Brother Amshel brought these dolls from Amsterdam at your request. They are a part of a very rare collection."_

_"I'm sick of playing with them. They're all the same."_

Abruptly, Diva lets the doll drop on the carpet. Her stockinged feet crunch on broken porcelain as she steps over the pieces.

Solomon makes no comment. He is used to the dangerous instability of Diva's whims. Early on, he has learnt that where Diva can lavish pindot fascination on any item or person, once her curiosities have been satisfied, she can discard them with the same treacherous ferocity.

Endowed with a pragmatic nature, Solomon has been quick to adjust his own expectations accordingly. But for his fellow-Chevaliers, like Karl, like James, it seems the knowledge has never quite sunk in.

Even now, when Diva behaves callously with Karl, ignoring and demeaning him, Solomon can see the hurt boiling in his eyes. Even now, when Diva flounces promptly from James' arms to let Solomon sweep her in a dance sequenced to her own laughter, Solomon can see the rage in James' gaze.

Some lessons, no matter how many decades pass, refuse to be learned.

Carefully, he steps over the broken dolls. _"Of course, Diva. If you're done with them, I'll have someone clean this mess up."_

Diva makes no answer. Clad in knee-high silk stockings but naught else, she sidles her way to the richly-lacquered table, hair falling like a smoky shroud around her body. Solomon watches as she reaches for an arrangement of black-red roses in the centerpiece, bringing a single bloom against her lips.

_"What a pretty color."_

_"They're called Nigrette roses, Diva."_

_"They're almost the same shade as my hair. But their edges are red. It's like they've been dipped in blood."_

_"Perhaps you would like me to help you dress and take you for a stroll through the garden?"_ Solomon suggests. _"They have several more flowers like this one, planted among the topiaries there."_

_"I don't want to go to the garden. The flowers there are all trimmed. They disgust me."_

_"Well, these flowers are trimmed as well, to be honest."_

_"Yes, but I like these. They have no roots, so they die faster. It's much better for them that way."_ Closing her eyes, Diva inhales on the rose. Solomon watches her eyelashes fan along her cheeks, red lips curving into an expression of sweet repose.

Against his will, he seems to see her twin sister, _Saya_ , superimposed across her face. A fragile swan neck curving out of bouffant pink sleeves; a delicate body wrapped in a wealth of rosy fabric and lace. That blushing face, all sweetly-smiling lips and warm bright eyes, evoked by the power of his gaze alone.

Really, in this dim light, it would be so easy to overlook subtle discrepancies. So easy to just reach out…to imagine…

Then Diva's eyes open to regard his; a cool crystalline blue that decimates his musings at their core. _"You're being so quiet, Solomon. Are you thinking about something?"_

As if she knows precisely _what_ he is thinking about.

As if, even when her gaze is never on his, she can taste the flavor of his thoughts staining the air.

Solomon blinks. _"Oh? Nothing at all, Diva. I was merely wondering what new toy to get you. Something special to replace your dolls, perhaps. It was really quite naughty of you to break them, you know."_

 _"I'm sorry."_ Empty words, emerging from her tongue, released from nothing. Neither of them understands the meaning of that word, and he knows it.

 _"It's perfectly all right, my Diva. They were for you to play with as you wished."_ Solomon pauses, glancing at the mangled shards. _"Exactly what were you looking for in those dolls? There is nothing inside them, you know."_

Diva smiles.

Solomon sees her lips curving, the action as empty as the word _sorry_. Connected to, and born from nothing _._

 _"Of course,"_ she says.

_"Of course, what?"_

_"Of course you would say that. If it were Nathan, he'd have given me a sweet dressing-down on breaking my toys. James would have wanted to get me a new doll to replace each one. Karl would have found me a new playmate instead. But not you. You just ask me what I was looking for."_

Solomon hesitates.

It is still impossible for him to determine if his Queen is having a lucid spell, or whether her mind is meandering down yet-another directionless tangent.

The utter unpredictability of Diva's moods renders her a delicious enigma at times. But as much as that volatility once delighted Solomon—it is beginning to feel, more and more, like plunging through empty air with no solid ground to touch his feet.

No way to know when this haze of uncertainty will end. No break or lull; no rest in sight.

He always feels so indistinct in her presence, so unknown and unknowable. So…empty.

 _"I am not quite sure what you mean, Diva,"_ he says.

Diva giggles. _"Yes you do."_

_"No, I'm afraid I—"_

_"Nathan says that when all things are from one family, they understand each other. They have the same thoughts and feelings. Mothers understand their babies. Sisters…"_ Her giggle deepens, like something tumbling deliriously downhill. _"…sisters understand their sisters. Because they're made of the same thing. Their parts are all the same. So are their empty spaces."_

_"Yes, I suppose that's true. However that does not—"_

Diva points to the shimmering disorder of dolls, as if in answer. _"Those dolls are all empty. They're hollow inside. I'm sure they all know that. They're all the same, because they're family."_

_"Well, yes. I suppose—"_

Diva is at his side then. Fingers twining through the fabric of his coat, hair slippery against the crisp material of his shirt.

Solomon stiffens, unsure whether she expects to feed, or whether she requires a different sort of service from him. Either way, it is both his duty to satisfy her—even as he knows, and never more intensely than in moments where fangs pierce blood and flesh steeps flesh, that he bears no hold on this woman before him, that his existence does not seem to cast so much as a speck on her.

It is not that Diva treats him as if he is as good as dead. Far from it.

Amshel often sneers at him for being their beloved Diva's favorite fair-haired boy. Nathan mocks him mercilessly and Solomon can sense both James' seething jealousy and Karl's bitter self-decimation. He knows Diva is as fond of him as she is capable of being—although that itself is neither saying much, nor a comforting sign.

But it is the way she treats him, the way she looks at him, that is most unnerving.

Playful and impudent whether in his bed or by his side, offhand with every word or glance—as though she could care less what he thought or said or did, as though it does not cast so much as a dent on her existence.

As though _he_ _himself_ has never even existed to begin with.

At least a dead man would have left some impact within her, if only in her memory. This is just absolute... _negation_.

Diva closes her eyes now, pressing one curious ear to his chest, exactly as she did with her dolls. _"Poor Solomon. It's the same thing with you."_

Solomon stares down at her glossy black head. _"What do you mean, Diva?"_

_"You're just like those dolls. There's nothing in there. It's all completely empty."_

_"Diva…"_

Her gaze lifts to his. Eyes a brilliant frigid sapphire; a silent forewarning of her rising thirst. She is always so thirsty, his Diva. Always so needy. No matter how well-fed or how frequently and thoroughly seen-to she is, no matter how many dolls she is plied with or how many caresses she is heaped with, she always seems to need more.

She always seems to be as empty, as unfulfilled as Solomon himself. As the rest of their family.

 _"You're just like these dolls, Solomon,"_ Diva says. _"You're the same as they are. Just a big quiet inside. It almost makes me sad, but then...but then I remember there's one thing you have that my dolls never will."_

_"And… what is that, Diva?"_

Diva's bout of mysterious cogency ends at this point. Her smile now bears the full spectrum of feral madness. Fangs sharp and foreboding against her smiling lips, like a mesmeric banner.

 _"My dolls don't bleed,"_ she says.

And her hands latch around his neck, fangs sinking against his flesh before he can react.


	18. Hysteria

Pacing the confines of her room, Saya has moved past the heights of desperation, to seething rage, and finally tears.

The door refuses to budge. No matter how hard she slams against it, the lock seems fused shut. She has a feeling this hotel suite was once Cinque Fleshe property. The walls are soundproofed and the doors seem alloyed. At her peak, she might have broken past them in a handful of hours, but since Vietnam, her strength has not been the same.

Even though she has pounded on the door until splinters embed her fists, it refuses to crack.

She considers smashing the window open to leap to the pavement below. But the suite is too high up; the drop from this height would certainly leave her injured, if not dead. Not to mention barefoot and pregnant in a city where she has no money for a cab, no one to help her.

 _Wait_.

Haji is still here. If she can break out of this room, if she can make her way downtown and find him, she can—

Saya squeezes her eyes shut.

_No._

She refuses to drag Haji into this. Refuses to allow him to see her this way; desperate and out of her depth. If Solomon finds out where she is, she is sure he will only focus his wrath on Haji. This is none of Haji's responsibility. She refuses to keep involving him in her problems.

This situation is _her's_ to shoulder. She must find a solution on her own.

She has already tried, first quietly, then in shrieking fits, to call for Solomon—only to be left unanswered. Cursing has not summoned him, nor have uncontrollable jags of crying that leave her sagging against the door with her own pulse pounding in her ears.

What does he plan to do with her? Just leave her locked up? Is he going to come back soon—and if he is, will he believe her, or just pepper her with further accusations?

Lying to him about her whereabouts was a bad idea, she understands that now. Certainly, given Haji's coincidental presence here, his suspicions are not baseless. She recalls the blinding jealousy she felt upon learning Haji had been with someone else; she thinks of the anger that fills her when she sees other women flitting around Solomon.

If she is not above those childish resentments, does she really expect her husband, whose obsession for her defies all _reason_ , to not be outraged by her behavior?

Saya bites her lip. Perhaps, if she tries hard enough, she can convince Solomon of the truth. She must find a way to make him understand. If he loves her, he will forgive her—she _knows_ he will.

Until then, she has no choice left but to wait.

Time elapses in a blur. There is no clock in the room. She is conscious only of the escalation of hunger in her stomach, and the unbroken rumble of traffic below.

The shadows across the floor retract and fade as daylight floods the suite; morning comes, but Solomon does not reappear. Afternoon creeps by at an excruciating pace. Saya wanders to and fro across the carpet, staving off panic. With every breath, the walls seem to be contracting. She seems to hear Solomon's footsteps at every point, unclicking locks and turning knobs with every rustle and creak.

But the door remains shut.

No one comes for her.

Night falls like a dismal black shutter; the suite's silence is enough to suffocate. Saya gnaws at her fingernails and tugs on the bloodstone at her throat, praying for some sign of Solomon.

_What's going on?_

_He wouldn't leave me here like this, would he?_

Dizzy from hours of pacing, she slumps on the bed, fighting nausea. She cannot sleep, not after everything that has happened. Her body feels gauzy, sore; the veins in her temples pound from hunger.

She has not fed since last morning. There is no blood in here; Solomon keeps the special blood-packs in a locked cooler by the table. She needs to feed soon; since the pregnancy, her appetite has only intensified—she needs sustenance every four hours to keep herself healthy.

Solomon wouldn't go so far as to starve her, would he? No matter how angry he is, it seems inhumane to think so.

Rising, she knocks on the door again. Her voice is hoarse. "Solomon? Solomon… please don't leave me in here. I'm so thirsty. There's nothing for me to eat. Please just let me out?"

No answer.

"Please? Couldn't we just talk? I don't know why you're treating me this way, Solomon. I haven't done anything wrong. I swear to you. _Please_."

Silence.

She almost gives up, but a sudden footfall jolts her. Suddenly, she senses— _feels_ —Solomon's presence on the other side of the door. It is the same feeling she used to get when there were Chiropterans aprowl in the war. Something about how the air deepens to a heavier shade, the surrounding molecules thrumming with heat.

Seized by hope, Saya presses her cheek to the door. "Solomon? I know you can hear me. Please. _Please_ let me out?"

"You ought to be sitting quietly, finding some way to make up for your inexcusable behavior, instead of haranguing me," comes the cold reply.

She is too frantic to be repelled by his tone. After all these hours of solitude, even the smallest hint of contact is like providence. "Solomon, _please_. Just let me out. I'm telling you the truth. If it'll make any difference, call Kai. He'll tell you Haji was at the MITO long before we ever arrived. I never called him here, and I never snuck off so I could be with him—"

"Haji has just left Milan."

"Wh-what?"

"Haji. He is no longer in the city. The musicians at the MITO claim that he left last evening, and very suddenly at that." Solomon's voice is cool, as though he is dictating a memo to his secretary.

"You—went out to find Haji?"

"Not personally. But I placed inquiries, of course. I refused to take the chance of you summoning him, the moment I left the suite again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice—"

"What? Solomon, _no_! How could I call Haji here? He doesn't own a phone; I don't know his number—"

Solomon lets off a mirthless chuckle. "You're too much, Saya. You are telling me you have no idea how a Queen and her Chevalier keep in contact during long journeys? That you've never once closed your eyes and sent for him by the power of thought alone, even during the war?"

"Sent for him by _thought_? Solomon, no! I don't know about any of this! I was raised by humans; I can't know these things! Anything that Haji and I knew about our chiropteran powers, we had to teach each other!"

"In my frame of mind, you have no idea what that just sounded like," he sneers

"Solomon, _please!_ Please don't do this to me. I haven't done anything wrong; the last thing I'd ever want is to hurt you!"

"A profound performance—and if I were foolish and young and did not know any better, I might actually buy it. But the fact of the matter is, I am not. You already lied to me before; what should stop you from doing so a second time? Honestly, a part of me even questions if you can tell the difference between deceit and sincerity at all."

Tears burn Saya's eyes. She staves off rising hysteria. " _No_! Why do you keep _saying_ these things to me? Solomon—I'm carrying your children, for god's sake!"

"A fact that, if not for the mating arrangement of our species, I would question as much as your fidelity."

She bangs wild fists on the door. " _Stop it_! Stop talking to me this way! I swear to you, I'm not lying! I haven't done anything wrong! You can't lock me up in here! What gives you the right?!"

"What gives _you_ the right to lie to me and gallivant off with Haji? Perhaps you should consider that before you go hurling accusations at me. If you think that dramatics will change my mind, you are sadly mistaken."

Tears roll down her face, thick and hot as melted wax. Why? _Why why why_? Why doesn't he believe her? Why is he undermining her every word as though it is manipulative pretense? Is he trying to torture her into admitting what he clearly suspects her of? Is he trying to drive her out of her mind with barricades and blame?

Already a day and a half in here, and Saya is desperate for human contact. Already a handful of hours in confinement, and she is thirsty and jittering, ready to plead with her own captor, starving for the faintest show of warmth or affection.

 _This must've been how Diva felt when she was locked in that tower,_ she realizes with a chill.

God, how had her sister _survived_ this way? How had she not been driven almost completely to the brink, living like this? No one weaker in mind and body could possibly stand it.

The fact that Diva had managed to hold on at all, despite being maltreated and abused at every point, seemed a sure testament of how strong her will to live had been.

And now, in some cruel ploy of fate, Saya finds herself in the same spot as Diva—held prisoner by her sister's own Chevalier, of all people.

Her head pounds, burning bile filling her throat. The room seems to blur.

Pressing her brow to the door, Saya rasps, "If you can… keep me locked in here this way, Solomon, then you're no better than Amshel."

"What?"

Pushing away, she raises her voice over surging nausea. "You are no better than _Amshel,_ you hear me, Solomon?! He wanted to keep Diva locked up so she'd be all his—and that's _exactly_ what you're doing to me! You're trying to make me suffer, just like she did! _Just say you_ _are_!"

Solomon doesn't answer, but she knows he is still standing at the door.

The room tilts like the rolling deck of a ship. Saya stumbles jerkily for the bed, and, unable to make it, grabs the dresser instead. Two perfume bottles topple. She feels more than sees them hit the floor, almost experiencing the rough-soft texture of the carpet, the slosh of the liquid within, gurgling like her own vertigo.

"Saya?"

There is a shift in Solomon's tone. Alerted by the sound of rattling furniture, he turns the knob.

Red lights erupt behind Saya's eyes; she has just enough time to see him opening the door, pale-faced and wary, before her knees give out.

Solomon catches her a split-second before her head hits the carpet. The last thing she sees are his frantic eyes swimming above her, before blackness takes hold.

* * *

Haji shoots across the rooftops in an indigo streak. Moving unstoppably, relentlessly, as though the very demons of hell chase at his heels.

But really, it is just the memories of a single girl.

He cannot stop himself. Cannot rein in his thoughts or emotions. Every exquisite atrocious second from their meeting seems to play on and on, roiling in his head the notes of a music-box. Making his own skin hum in answer, making his body vibrate, every living inch of him calling out for her in a blazing swirl of yearning and misery and loss.

Everything, _anything_ she said to him, from wafts of inhaled perfume, to slivers of burning skin brushing against his, to tears rolling down that beautiful, unforgettable face, to his name tumbling from shaking red lips, all scorching his self-restraint to oblivion.

 _I can't do this,_ Haji thinks wildly. _I can't… I can't stay here._

He wonders if Saya knows, how it felt for him to see her again. How it felt, watching her walk away. The very scent of her blood seemed to trail behind her, a red trail of salvation he'd had to fight not to chase like some half-starved beast. Her very presence had filled him with a thoughtless longing he'd had to suppress at every point, when what he wanted most was to take her in his arms, absorb all her fears and doubts clean into himself.

Looking back on it, it was so clear that something had happened between her and Solomon. Something that had driven her, during their meeting, to break into sporadic tears against him, again and again, even as she insisted everything was _fine_.

But how could he believe that?

It had burned him _so much_ to see her that way. In a way, it had burned even worse, because despite everything, he still wanted her as much as ever.

Wanted her _more_ than ever.

She had cried, when she'd learnt about his folly in Hong Kong. Genuinely seemed sad to know that he'd apparently moved on. But Haji knows better than to invest his hopes on that. It was no more than her pride talking. After all his years of serving her, she cannot tolerate the idea that he would take up with anyone else, that is all.

Yes, by the lake, she as good as confessed that she regretted parting ways with him. Told him she missed him.

But he hadn't the courage to tell her that he missed her _twice as much_.

He wished he could have seized his chance then. Just told her how much he needed her, just begged her to please _please_ leave Solomon and come back to him, he would take care of her, he would do everything in his power to make her happy again—so _please_ Saya _,_ just come back, he could not do this without her, it was growing harder with every passing second, he could not bear another moment of it, he could not see any _purpose_ in bearing it, not without touching or seeing or speaking to her, it was just too hard, and he could not, _could not_ —

Haji squeezes his eyes shut.

_No._

If anything, his own hysteria warns him how meager his self-control is. Impels him to leave this city, while he still has the chance and the courage to.

Knowing Saya is here, knowing she inhabits a region where she is forever within his reach, Haji cannot bring himself to stay. Just the very _idea_ of her presence, just the very inkling that she is sleeping here tonight, that another man, _Solomon_ , is lying right beside her, touching her, breathing her in— _no_.

He cannot stand it.

_I have to go…_

_I cannot let her see me like this._

_Because if I see her again…if I speak to her again, or if she speaks to me or as much as_ looks _at me…_

_No._

So his zigzags across each rooftop, wind whipping wildly at his hair, lashing at the ends of his coat. Yanking further and further away from the ferocious compulsion of Saya's proximity—even as every inch of him churns and contorts with even greater violence than that fateful day he was turned into her Chevalier.

That day when he tasted her blood in one flowing irresistible gulp, felt a pair of soft full lips on his, the overwhelming scent of copper, of grass and red lilies ascendant in his nose. His own life oozing out of him, unraveling faster and faster like a gossamer tapestry coming apart at Fate's hands.

How pale and paltry it seems, contrasted with _this_.

No comparison at all.

But even as he pulls farther away from the city, the distance between him and Saya widening and intensifying, Haji knows he will never be able to eradicate the spell of her memory. Indeed, he does not even _want_ to forget her. How can he, after how long he has lived, after all he has sacrificed and suffered for her sake?

She is, and always has been, his very reason for being.

 _This_ , Haji tells himself, _this_ _is why it is so impossible for you to abandon the city._

It is not, he assures himself, because of the premonition within him, growing stronger with every passing second.

The intuition, that when he sees Saya the next time, he will wish he had torn her away from Solomon while he had his chance.


	19. Amorphous

**CW: Violence/Gore**

* * *

_Present moment..._

They clash over rooftops like dueling titans.

Ephemeral flashes of sparks, shrill _clangs_ as if from striking swords. Bounding from one building to the next, indigo blurs too swift for the human eye to track.

An ago-old duel as interminable as time. A contest for life battled paradoxically to the death.

The moon has risen to fill the sky. Buildings and shopfronts lit up. A dull suffusion of traffic a hundred feet below. The biting whistle of wind a hundred feet above.

Despite his years on the forefront, Haji has only been in such a battle once before.

His clash with Amshel, at the MET.

That showdown had borne this finality. The same _Now or Never_. He knew defeating Amshel had to be done. As much to protect Saya until she'd completed her mission, as in knowing he himself had to survive to fulfill his promise to her.

Saya had asked him later, if killing Amshel had brought him any satisfaction. But how could he have been satisfied? He was supposed to decimate the night's triumph by taking Saya's life away. What was more chilling than that?

This battle is exactly like that.

No inception, no gap. Not about wounded pride or territorial instinct. Not even about jealousy, really.

It is something, for Haji, that simply _must_ be done.

After knowing how Saya has suffered at Solomon's hands, knowing precisely _what Solomon has done to her_ —he cannot stand another moment. Not without wanting to feel the other man's bones crunching under his fists. He can almost taste his cloying blood, almost hear him howling in agony—

Then Solomon deals Haji a vicious blow to the gut.

And Haji's violent fantasy bleeds into genuine intent.

Solomon's face is stark white, eyes blazing with a fury Haji has never seen before. He expects cavalier lightness from his opponent. Aloof smiles and disdainful sneering.

Solomon has always seemed in such despicable possession of his Chiropteran lineage. Even in New York, where they faced-off amid skyscrapers, one fighting to retrieve Saya, the other to attain her, Solomon had seemed so appallingly sure of himself.

He'd known he would win. By calculation. By attrition.

But this isn't like that at all.

Solomon has never snarled when he sinks his blade-arm through Haji's chest.

Never rammed Haji back against the wall of the rooftop, expression feral with rage.

Never pounded the knuckles of his human hand again and again into Haji's face, as if trying to pulp his bones.

Haji hears, over the blood roaring in his ears, gushing into his eyes and mouth, an infinity of curses falling from the other man's lips. As though his ire is so vast, it cannot even be contained by the steely silence that submerses Haji in turn.

Something has clearly happened here—as much to _Solomon_ as to Saya.

Something that makes Haji wonder precisely what Solomon is fighting so desperately for now.

"You ruined everything," Solomon seethes, between each blinding blow. "You poisoned Saya so completely she could never even _be_ mine! You wormed your way into her like a _disease_ , and no matter what I do, I cannot seem to purify her! Nothing I do seems to _reach_ her!"

His fist rams into Haji's face. Haji's head slams against the wall, mouth gushing blood.

"Again and again, all she does is call for _you_! All she sees or thinks about is _you_! Not me—not my life with her, not my love for her, not even about our children! _Her very_ being _is_ _fixated_ _on_ _you_!"

He swings to hit Haji again. But this time, Haji ducks out of the way. He sees shattering concrete and outflying shards. His grip tightens on Solomon's blade-arm, still embedded like a grisly phallic spire against his body.

One tight clench, and Haji rips it out.

Caught off-guard, Solomon finds himself swung sideways by the arm. Haji whirls and tosses him with dizzying force over the rooftop. Solomon freefalls like a suicidal jumper, before gaining possession of his limbs and leaping onto the closest roof.

His feet barely touch concrete before he rebounds again, streaking for Haji with his gleaming lance extended.

Haji ducks before the whistling blow connects with his head. He swerves sideways, slashing at his opponent with his Chiropteran claw. Torquing his body just in time, Solomon deflects the blow with his lance-arm.

A hot smatter of sparks shoots through the air.

Taking advantage of his proximity, Solomon kicks at Haji's bleeding stomach. Haji grunts as Solomon's heel connects with his still-throbbing gut-wound.

Black spots ignite before his eyes. For a second the pain is so intense he nearly blacks out.

Solomon utilizes the opportunity to kick again, harder, flinging Haji off the roof. Haji hears wind roar in his ears, a suffusing howl of despair, before he impacts with the next rooftop with a blinding _thud_.

Stars erupt before his eyes. Blinking through the streaming blood, he seems to see ten of everything.

Ten white moons, ten looming buildings, ten different signboards.

And then, out of nowhere, Solomon swoops forward. And the multifarious images contract sharply back into one.

Haji gasps as Solomon kicks him again, a crunching punt to the ribs. Crying out, he skids across the rooftop, leaving a dark trail of blood behind. Solomon leaps after, kicking again, then again, each time Haji stops or slows. No flair or finesse. Only the full brunt of boiling hatred.

Before Solomon moves in for another kick, Haji catapults to his feet. He staves off resurgent dizziness in favor of more palpable _rage_.

Lashing out, he slashes Solomon across the chest with his Chiropteran claw. Blood splatters the air, drenching Solomon's already-bloodstained suit.

Anger opens Haji's throat. He says, cold and tight, "I _know_ what you did to Saya."

Solomon freezes.

Haji expects him to contradict. But instead, he shudders as though the statement stings worse than any somatic slash.

"I am not proud of it. I am not proud of _any of it_. I swore to her I would not hurt her—but what happened was an accident! Neither of us were responsible! I just could not _reach_ her! I could not make her see me, _acknowledge_ me, even once! _She was too busy thinking about_ you!"

With that, Solomon jabs with his bayonet-arm. Haji snares the pointed appendage in his claw, forcing it back before it can reach his throat.

Teeth gritted, Solomon leans in. Their faces are barely a hairsbreadth apart.

"Even though she _knows_ I love her—even when she told me _she loved me too_ , that she _couldn't help it_ —she still refuses to be mine! She just isn't capable of loving me as I do! All because of _you_! All because you tainted her the moment you met her—you were bought to _impregnate_ her, weren't you? Except you couldn't even do _that_ right! You were worthless as human, as a Chevalier—Saya's love, her very _splendor_ is wasted on you! What could you give her except constant despair? What is it _about_ you that she _needs so much_!"

Eyes narrowed, Haji barely evades a scythelike blow, followed by a sweeping kick with enough force to dislodge his skull.

Solomon's movements are so sharp they veer on explosive. Portions of his skin are graying, fangs emerging like long needles from a distended mouth. He is losing the line between man and monster, between a battling Chevalier and a slavering beast.

But instead of muddling his reflexes, it seems to hone each jab even fiercer.

They both catapult off the rooftop in the next breath. Plummeting through the air, Haji has barely enough time to glimpse Solomon's ruthless face before they _ram_ into the next rooftop with shattering force.

Haji cries out as searing pain erupts through him. Solomon is heavy and implacable on top, fist wrapped tight as a lasso around his throat.

"I _tried_ ," Solomon says, but he seems to be raging, almost to himself. "I tried and tried whatever I could to make her happy! I wanted so badly for her to be mine! I know she would have been better for it! We _both_ would have! But instead it's all come to _this_ —and _you_ are the one entirely to blame!"

Raising his lance, he prepares to deal the _coup de grace._

Haji digs his knees into Solomon's stomach before he can strike, shoving him off.

Solomon cries out as he barrels end-over-end through the air, colliding with the wall ahead in a resounding _crunch_ of bone and concrete.

He slumps in a recumbent heap. Seizing his chance, Haji props himself upright with a wince, bones clicking and popping with atrocious sizzles as they realign. Something about this fight bears an undercurrent of disquiet. He finds himself wondering precisely what happened between Saya and Solomon, to make them both behave this way.

In the next instant, breath explodes from his lungs. With a snarl, Solomon tackles him to the floor.

One sharp jab from his spear-arm, and he impales Haji clean through the chest, pinning him to the roof. The other hand blurs and elongates, forming a second blade.

Solomon brandishes it like an axe above Haji's head.

His expression is oddly congruent to the gesture: the implacability of either an executioner or an avenger, of a cold-blooded murderer or a long-suffering savior.

And Haji realizes what disquiets him so much about this battle.

Solomon's face, the look in his eyes, is exactly like how _Saya's_ was, during the war. A look that extended beyond victory or conquest, a look that craved nothing but the most ultimate of reprieves.

And it hits Haji that Solomon is not fighting for vengeance, either.

He is simply fighting for his own death.

For the briefest second, Haji feels a frission of pity for this man, who took Saya away from him, who drove her to that wretched state he found her in. Pity for the part of Solomon that seems so hopelessly similar to Saya, it can invoke no further enmity in Haji in turn.

Until Solomon's eyes flash red, and his razor-sharp lance swings down to sever Haji's throat.

* * *

"Come on Saya! You can do this!"

Blinding agony. Whole body a pulsating bolus of pure pain. She feels like she will splatter apart—every breath hurts. Spasms rack her like gunfire. She chokes on air, clawing for a gap between each contraction. Like a victim in a shipwreck, swimming through stormy black waves, looking for something, _anything_ to hold onto.

Anything to save her before she drowns completely out of sight.

"Breathe, Saya! Just breathe! It's going to be all right!"

Who is talking to her? There seem to be voices everywhere. Kai's, Julia's, Mao's. She blinks but cannot see them. Her eyes are smothered in livid red film.

_If I told you that I fell in love with you… would you ever believe me?_

Sounds of people rushing here and there. She hears monitors beeping. Sharp aroma of drugs and gels. A voice snaps, "The Nubian's messing up the babies' heartbeats. They don't show everytime she has a contraction!"

"I know! Put her on an oxygen mask!"

A warm hand clenches on hers. She can't tell whose it is, but her fingers tighten around it like a lariat. Vision narrowing, closing to a hot red tunnel that swallows her alive.

_Impossible. She is my reason for being!_

Where are all these voices coming from? They seem to be floating all around her ears. Rushing right _inside_ her.

"Where…" she whimpers. "Where are you…?"

"Saya—Saya, it's me! It's Kai! Come on, don't cash out on us! You can do this!"

Kai? Her eyelids flutter. She looks but cannot see him.

"Kai!" This is David's voice. "She's high as a kite right now. She can't understand you!"

"Doesn't matter! I'm staying right here! She's not gonna go through this alone!"

She feels a rubbery oxygen-mask on her mouth and nose. Heavy and sweltering, cutting off her air. She thrashes wildly—she _needs_ the air, _she_ _doesn't want her mouth covered_. But gloved hands fasten it around her face, cinching the mask tight like a harness.

_You never really do seem to need anything I give you. That's the conundrum, isn't it?_

There is so much pain. She remembers stabbing herself to kill Phantom, the viscid electric pain that ripped through her then. Pulsing through every muscle, stretching each nerve tight enough to snap. _Nothing_ compared to this. Instead of subsiding, the pain redoubles with every breath. Red lights crackle before her eyes. She gulps wild air through the stifling mask.

_If you try to force it out, you'll only damage your internal organs. Then you'll be in real trouble._

_Let me help you._

Another contraction, wrenching a sharp _guuhhhh!_ from her throat. The world swims in feverish red. Oh, how she wishes a radio were turned on somewhere. A television. White noise. _Anything._ Sweet sound and movement to distract her from this pain.

"Come on, Saya! Breathe! Breathe!"

 _Can't_ breathe. Everything hurts too much. Her muscles tighten instead, body tensing into a soundless airless fist. Of her own accord, she begins _clenching,_ pushing with everything she has, surging back against the pain. Oh, what a _relief_ to push. The pain, while not subsiding, narrows down to a single point. She pushes again, harder. The room swims and blurs, everything garbled as if underwater.

"All right! That's it, Saya! _Push_! You can do this!"

Her back is a rictus of pain. Each spinal cord telegraphing different degrees of agony. There are gloved hands on her legs. Holding them up and back, rubber slippery on moist skin. Blood streaming everywhere. So much _blood_ —where is it coming from? Can't be spilling put of _her_ —impossible to think so. In the background, a voice is screaming uncontrollably, again and again, sobbing _please stop, please please make it stop_!

_You will learn to be happy, Saya. You just…need to give yourself some time._

"Why—why does she have so many bruises?" Kai's voice demands out of nowhere.

"I-I'm not sure." This is Julia. "But there's signs of physical trauma all over her body. Like she was in a fight before coming here. Most of her wounds haven't even fully healed yet."

Saya shakes her head, fighting for oxygen and words. _No... no... it's not how it looks._

_You don't know what happened!_ _You don't know what I did!_

"Where the fuck did she get them from? What happened to her?"

"I'm not sure. But she still has a cracked rib and a fractured coccyx—"

"A fractured _what_?"

"Tailbone, Kai—she's damaged her tailbone. Maybe after falling down. Or maybe she was pushed. We're not sure. But it's going to cause complications— the babies aren't showing up on the internal monitor anymore—they might be having a reaction to the painkillers we gave her. And in this condition, she's having trouble pushing them out."

" _So what the hell are you going to do about it_?"

"Kai, please relax. We're going to put her under with an epidural. Perform an emergency caesarean. But first we need to—"

Her voice is losing volume, muffled under a heavy wave. The other sounds in the room, the voices and beeps, are fading. Saya tries to cling to them, to Kai's hand wrapped around hers. But the darkness is slowly pulling her under. Sweet oblivion, an end to all pain and sadness. She struggles, first against it, then helplessly toward it. Resignation filling her, a single question consuming all existing thought:

_What's the point…?_

Her life should have ended a long time ago. The longer she lives, the more pain she will cause. To herself, her family.

To Solomon. To _Haji_.

_Please. Just let it end._

_I'm so tired…_

_I can't do this anymore…_

She is drowning in murky blackness. Scent, sight, sound, all fading out. At the same time, her body is amorphous, floating. Rising through the air, settling soft as a cloud on the ceiling. Cement hard and cool on her cheek, a relief from the hot pulsing pain. She can see the tops of everyone's heads. The slack body of a girl on bloodstained sheets. It looks so much like her. But how can that be?

She feels a sharp pinprick in her lower-back then. Pincer? No, hypodermic needle. Liquid spurting into her blood. Everything formless, melting like snow under kindling flame. She is so sleepy. Closes her eyes, and in the darkness, a thread of light blooms. Cool white hand, beckoning to her like a beacon.

Sailing toward it, she knows everything is over at last.

She is free to rest in peace.


	20. Somnolent

She seems buried under a sand dune.

Eyes grainy; mouth and nose arid. All muscles pinned. Impossible to flex her toes or lift her fingers.

Images dance before her eyes. Bruises, moonlight, and steel. Racked in delirium, she sees her father and Riku. Gushing rivers of blood, uncontrollable screams in over sixty different languages. Diva with haunted blue eyes, body shattering to stone. Haji leaning in, sunlight glinting off flowing hair, offering her a white palm like a benediction.

Tears sting her eyes. So dehydrated, they boil like magma.

"…Low blood pressure," says a gruff male voice. "She clearly hasn't been eating enough."

"She had no food for at least fourteen hours. I'm unsure what she ate before that. Perhaps nothing. " The second voice is familiar, cool as winter rime.

"Well, such carelessness will lead to all kinds of trouble. Fainting spells are quite common in pregnancies. See to it that she keeps bottled water at hand, and takes lots of fluids and salty food."

"Of course."

"Teenage pregnancies always have the greatest complications. These girls are barely children themselves. They don't know how to take care of their own bodies, let alone babies. Keep a close eye on her, if you expect her to carry to full term."

"I intend to, make no mistake of that."

"Other than that, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with her. There are no indications of bleeding or toxemia. No low-lying placenta. But make sure she takes her vitamins regularly, and that she avoids going out in the sun. How exactly did she pass out?"

"Jet-lag and shopping sprees don't go together, I'm afraid," Solomon says smoothly. "I told her not to head out in such heat, but you know how these girls are. Nothing can wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow, when she wakes up, I am sorry to say she will want to go clubbing."

A sympathetic chuckle. "Tell her to take it easy. She needs to slow down; for her children's sake as much as her own. An early pregnancy is one thing. Carrying twins only doubles the risk. And most of these young mothers are more concerned about dieting and weight loss than in eating sufficiently. Make sure she isn't one of them."

"Of course. Thank you for stopping by. The concierge will see you out."

Heavy footsteps, followed by a door opening, and the gruff-voiced man being escorted away. Then a _click_ of a lock ensues. Someone settles at her side, depressing the mattress. She smells familiar airy cologne, feels a hand caressing her forehead.

"I'm sorry," a voice whispers. "I'm so so sorry..."

Her eyes crack open. The room tilts before she sees Solomon gazing at her.

He is pale and still, golden hair curling over his forehead. Still wearing yesterday's suit, jacket off, tie and collar undone.

His eyes widen. "Oh. Good—you're awake. I was beginning to worry."

Saya can't answer. Her mouth is cottony, hunger gnawing her stomach. She realizes she is clad in just a thin white slip, weighed down by a heavy green quilt.

Solomon's palm slides along her back, gently lifting her. "You're determined to put me through my paces, aren't you? First sneaking off, then fighting with me, and now this. Honestly, your family never mentioned that you were this sadly delicate, or this impossible to deal with."

"Wh-what happened?"

"Ssh. You passed out, but it's all right. It was just from fatigue. I tried to examine you myself, but I couldn't keep a clear head. My... hands kept shaking. I needed to be absolutely sure you were all right. The hotel desk summoned the doctor from downtown."

"The…doctor?"

"Yes, for a second opinion, and to check on the babies. Contriving an excuse for why you fainted was another story—but I think it's safe to say you are in the clear. What you need now is to feed."

Before Saya can answer, he draws her against his chest, tugging aside his collar. She smells the blood thrumming behind his skin. The vein at the side of his throat tics rhythmically, a siren's call in flesh.

Impelled by thirst, Saya's fangs descend, eyes blazing red.

Solomon guides her mouth to his throat. "Go on, Saya. No need to hold back. You need to get your strength up."

Misgiving fills her. She has never fed from him this way before, save for those few times in bed, where desire has blurred the line between instinct and self-restraint. But those are more _love-bites than feeding fugues_ , as Solomon calls them. Seeking blood from him, at any other time, has never felt right—not when she knows it is what Diva once used him and all her other Chevaliers for.

What she herself once sought from Haji—and what she'd wanted to keep separate from her life with Solomon, tucked away like a rope of rare pearls.

She opens her mouth to ask for a blood-pack, but Solomon merely tightens his grip. "You know you can't fight this off forever, angel. Just go ahead. Take as much as you need. It's all right."

Blind hunger overrides self-restraint. Without questioning him further, Saya sinks her fangs into yielding flesh, hot blood instantly flooding her mouth.

Solomon gasps, but does not draw back. Years of serving Diva have whetted this Chevalier's function to perfection. Wordlessly, he tilts his head back, granting her better access. His hand strokes almost coaxingly along her back, in time with her each sucking gulp, her each sighing swallow.

In this moment, the fight between them hangs in limbo. There are no burning accusations, no antipathies and resentments. Right now, there is only this silent communion between Queen and servant, a primal give and take of blood and flesh.

Saya knows she has had her fill when a tingling heat spreads from her fingertips to every part of her. Gradually, the dizziness fades and her hunger ebbs. Solomon's forehead is pearly with sweat, breathing shallow. The same thing used to happen to Haji, in rare moments of too-prolonged feeding. She'd always assumed it meant she was hurting him.

She knows now, of course, that it was the opposite.

As she pulls away, a trickle of blood spills down her chin. Solomon draws a pristine handkerchief from his suit, wiping it away. His touch is gentle, but with a certainty even in his hesitation, like that of a battlefield medic.

The red sickle at his throat has already closed.

Taking her chin, Solomon studies her face, tilting it this way and that in the lamplight. "Good. This is good. There's more color on your cheeks; your eyes are brighter. You're feeling better, no doubt?"

Saya nods, eyes averted.

"Not dizzy anymore? No headache?"

She shakes her head.

"How many fingers am I holding up? Two, three?"

"I'm fine," she mutters. "There's still only one of you."

Solomon nods, hands dropping to his lap, fingers interlaced as if to prevent further contact. The gold lamplight illuminates each detail of his face. He is paler than usual, but it does not seem to be from the blood he has just relinquished to her. Lips white, edges of his eyes red, as though he has been rubbing them.

They regard each other in silence for a moment, unsure of what to say.

Finally, Solomon says, "You did not go downtown to meet Haji, did you?"

Pulse skipping, Saya shakes her head. "N-no. No I didn't."

"But what about what Simone said to me? That she'd told you Haji was at the MITO, and you left the suite instantly after."

"I-I know. It's true. Simone mentioned that Haji was in town. But I didn't go out there to be with him, Solomon. And I didn't summon him to this city. I just—I was so sick of the bodyguard following me, everyone checking up on me and refusing to leave me alone. That's why I went out. My running into Haji that way, it was a coincidence. You have to believe that."

Solomon's eyes narrow. "Then why did you lie about where you were?"

"Why did I—?" She falters.

Why is this question so difficult to answer? Is it because she herself is unsure how to explain? Unsure whether she went out to clear her head, to find Haji, or both?

"Solomon, I… didn't go out for any of the reasons you're thinking. I was just so tired of being stuck in here. I needed some peace; I wanted to explore the city. And it felt good. It felt so wonderful to not be trapped indoors, to just be free and anonymous in a crowd. That's all I wanted. I swear, I never meant to do anything worse."

Solomon gazes past her, not answering. She studies his profile, the straight nose and pale angelhair falling over his brow. His tongue wets his lips in a pale pink flicker.

How she wishes he would just lean close and kiss her. Gather her into his arms, give her some sign that this whole dispute between them is forgiven and forgotten—even as she is unsure who needs to be forgiven here, or what needs to be forgotten.

"You put me through hell back there, you know," he whispers.

"Solomon, I-I didn't mean to lie to you. I'd never do anything like…what you're thinking. I'm not like that. I'm not—"

"Not Diva." He shakes his head. "Yes, I know. You are not like your sister in any sense—yet, last night, I could not stop myself from thinking—"

"I know how it all must have looked to you, Solomon. But please, you have to trust me. Nothing happened. You don't have anything to be upset about."

"But I do." He turns to face her. She is stunned by the naked wretchedness in his gaze. "You did nothing wrong, and yet I—I treated you so terribly last night. I said so many inexcusable things to you. I left you locked up for an entire day. God, Saya, you're right. I really am no better than Amshel."

_Amshel? What is he—?_

She blinks, remembering.

_I called him that, didn't I? I said he was no better than Amshel, that he was treating me just like how Amshel had tortured Diva._

A flush of remorse supersedes her anxiety. Unthinking, she reaches for him.

"No… Solomon, that's not true. You aren't like Diva's other Chevaliers. You never were. I know that... a part of me always knew. That's why—I'm here with you at all. But please, you can't think that I'd... betray you, after everything that's happened. You've done so much for me; you've nearly lost your life because of me—"

"And in losing you, I would have died anyway. So risking my life was no grand sacrifice." His voice holds a rigid vehemence. He shies from her touch, burying his face in his hands. "I am so sorry, Saya. We have both been at odds these few weeks, but what I did to you just now is unforgivable. I exist to protect you, not to add to your troubles. _But that's_ _all I ever_ _do_ —"

"Solomon, you—you were only mad at me, that's why you did it. We all say… stupid things when we're angry. We all do things we shouldn't. But it's all right, nothing happened. I'm still—"

"Recovering from a near-miscarriage, carrying my daughters, and undeserving of such disgusting treatment. But still, I had the temerity to put you through all that, didn't I? God, I am so sorry, Saya. But you just—you cloud my mind completely. I do not know how to think or act around you, but I can never let you see me that way. It brings back too much. It makes me feel exactly the way I was as a human. Unsure at every turn, completely terrified by everything."

"Solomon—" His agonized confession rocks her. Suddenly, she can bring herself to overlook all his accusations from earlier, all her hours spent locked in her room.

Reaching out, she touches his hair. He flinches, averting his face.

"You don't know, do you?" he says. "You don't know—cannot imagine—how much you mean to me. Any second I spend with you, I feel more alive than I have in all my time as a Chevalier. And it is not metaphoric, Saya—this is physical, _concrete_. It's been that way since the first day I met you. You've always felt like that part of me I renounced, the moment I had been granted eternal life. The part I mislaid while I was still human."

"Mislaid…?"

He exhales, eyes closed. His lashes are darker than his hair and eyebrows. She's always liked their subtle contrast, like smudges of chocolate on a porcelain bowl.

"Saya, you have to understand. I became a Chevalier, for the same reasons you took up arms against Diva. To recompense, in some way, for human lives lost to senseless massacres. Both indirectly, and at my own hand. All those people I killed during the war, all the destruction I saw. I wanted so badly to be free of it. I wanted so badly to start over."

_Start over…_

His words echo with an electric déjà vu. Her own reasons for choosing this new life with Solomon; her own reasons for wanting Haji to kill her after the war ended. To leave behind the burdens of her past, to begin afresh, both in life and in death.

To just… forget everything.

"Solomon…" She is unsure of how to answer.

He doesn't seem to hear her. His gaze is fixed on the floor, at something beyond it, beyond this moment at all. Body held rigid by that inescapable flare-up of memory she knows too well.

"Have you ever heard of the Ypres Salient, Saya?" he asks quietly.

"No…"

"It's a place in Belgium, attacked by German troops to outflank France during the war. When I was a soldier, our cadre was posted there. The place was like the final circle of hell—this frozen, crater-redden wasteland. Gunfire, rotting bodies all around—men without limbs, without faces, with slices of skulls missing and brains still pulsing inside. The trenches were full of contaminated manure, crawling with rats; the ground was so slippery it was like wading through a swamp."

He lets off a self-deprecating chuckle. "My fingers turned blue the first day I arrived there, you know? I could barely move my hands to fire my carbine. I was shaking so much, so sure I wouldn't last beyond a day. Half the soldiers were suffering from gangrene and trench foot already, the other half from frostbite."

Saya winces. Solomon's fingers knot together as though reliving the gruesome experience. Thumbs crossed, trembling.

"Do you know what gas gangrene looks like, Saya?"

"No," she says truthfully.

"It happens after exposure to Mustard gas; one of the many inglorious weapons used in the Great War. Soldiers' flesh bubbles up like melted wax, after exposure to clostridium bacteria. Numbness, followed by inflammation. Arms and legs ballooning double their size. Men falling over, shuddering like mad, hurling out gobs of blood and vomit. The veins block off first, nodules bursting across the body, rotted, filled with pus. The flesh deadens into tatters, peeling off like paper so you can see all the rotting muscle beneath. Or else it sags, leathery and gray, oozing a stench you'll remember all your life. And all the while the victim is still conscious. Watching his body dissolve into slimy stubs, drowning alive in a puddle of his own death soup—"

"Solomon, please…" Saya squeezes her eyes shut.

The revulsion in his tone almost has a physical effect on her. She shudders as if everything he just described was experienced by her own senses.

There is no melodic lightness in Solomon's voice. Each word slips out dead and crisp, a handful of charred embers.

"That place was absolute hell, Saya. I saw more men killed there, felt more blood splattered across my face there, than will last me ten lifetimes. When the war finally ended, I took up medicine, as a means to make up for what I'd done. To heal, not destroy. But there was utter futility even in that. I was just going through the motions, unable to feel anything. No empathy. No compassion. _Nothing_. I may as well have died in those trenches; I couldn't bring myself to muster any feelings for the people I was helping. Nothing…seemed to be enough anymore. Nothing could make up for what I'd done in the war."

Saya watches him cautiously. For the first time she can remember, Solomon is completely motionless. Never shifting any part of his body, never meeting her gaze.

"So, is this why you agreed to become a Chevalier? To…escape that?"

"In a way… yes. But I wasn't looking for escape so much as …a reason to feel alive. Feel the way I had been, before the war sullied me mind and soul. And to some extent, in swearing myself to Diva, I got what I wanted. After breaking ties with my old life, I felt freer, more at peace than I could ever recall being. Except… also more alone. Part of a new family, each of us tied together by blood, but by very little else."

This only seems to reinstate it, what she has parsed out about Diva's Chevaliers. The disconnection between them, the hollowness pervading each of them despite their devotion.

She wants to reach out suddenly, to touch Solomon's hand, offer him some kind of consolation. Indeed, this is the longest the two of them have ever sat together, side-by-side, without igniting into an argument, or succumbing to physical duress.

But despite the distance, she cannot recall ever feeling this close to him. This is the nearest she has ever come to beholding, not a lover or an adversary—but just _Solomon_.

And it stuns her, how much of herself she sees in him.

Solomon takes her hand. His fingers twine through hers with a curious gentleness, as though discovering their texture anew.

"When I first met you, Saya, you seemed to embody everything I had forfeited to my immortality. The girl I met at the Lycee ball, she was genuine, open, in a way I had never been in decades. It was like I'd been trapped in a room full of mirrors, each senselessly reflecting the other, but here was this one person who seemed capable of generating her own feelings. Who seemed realer, purer, than anything else in my soiled existence had ever been."

She inhales, not knowing what to say.

Solomon lifts his eyes to hers then. His expression is drained and calm, all misgiving gone.

"Do you remember how, at the Zoo, you told me you wanted to protect humans against Diva? Even though there was no reward in it for you? Saya, even then, I couldn't help but think, that's exactly what I'd wanted, at one time in my life—until my own numbness drove me to sever all ties to my duty. Until humans ceased to matter to me at all, and I found myself opting for happiness rather than responsibility. And it struck me that you were far stronger in that sense, than I had ever been. All that life running through you, you were willing to sacrifice it for nothing."

Her first impulse is to correct him. Her mission was not a sacrifice for nothing, it isn't right for him to call it that. But then Solomon brings her fingers to his lips, and all her contradictions vanish amid a rush of tenderness.

"Saya, I never wanted to let you die. Not then, and especially not now. How could I? From the second I met you, I thought, if I could have just a single sliver of that life you possessed, just a tiny _drop_ —it would make all of this, this deadness and isolation, almost… tolerable. It would give me a reason to live on."

"Solomon…" Her fingers tremble in his.

In a movement she barely registers, he is kneeling before her. Lips pressing to the knuckles of one hand, then the other, urgent, beseeching.

"Saya, I'm so sorry. How I treated you last night was absolutely appalling. I should be putting my life to better use than tormenting you. I love you so much; you know that, don't you? You mean the world to me. I know I don't deserve you in any sense, but please… just tell me you forgive me. That's all I'm asking you. _Please_."

A burning congestion fills her eyes. How easy it is, amid these bitter clashes, to forget the very reason why she married him in the first place.

The reason why she is carrying his children, why she is by his side at all.

"It's all right, Solomon. Please, let's just forget about this. It was an accident, but it doesn't mean anything." She reaches out, touches his face. "Please don't be angry anymore. I care so much about you—I wouldn't ever betray you. You have to believe that."

Imbibing her words, his eyes glow. She sighs with giddy relief as he snatches her close, mouth covering hers. The kiss is as much an avowal of devotion as a mutual _thank you_. The coldness between them earlier was agonizing, _unbearable_.

Kisses rekindling amid shared gasps, she lets Solomon tumble her across the bed. Flushing all over from his delicious heat and weight against her, from the anticipation of his pleasure, her own. She doesn't want to think about their fight anymore—she just wants to cleave to him right now, for him to sink into her. Show him he can trust her so they can start afresh.

"Tell me," Solomon breathes, kissing her over and over as if feeding on her breath. "Sweetheart, tell me again?"

"Please... please trust me, Solomon. I'd never betray you. Not for anything. You _know_ that."

Gratified lips crush to hers, too hungry to be held off, digressing to her jaw, her ear, her throat. She gasps as he gnaws at her fluttering pulsepoint. That was one of Haji's favorite spots too. She wonders if it's an instinct in every Chevalier, to zoom in on a Queen's lifeblood.

_Haji._

Flinching, she wards the memory off. Wondering about Haji, what he has been doing since she left him—none of that will enrich her relationship with Solomon, and she knows it.

Far better to let Haji remain in the past, with her memories of the war.

Far better to focus on her new life, on her husband.

Solomon's hands are everywhere, teasing, taking possession. Their long lull of physical contact turns her frantic, importunate. She runs eager fingers through his hair, undoing buttons on his shirt, snatching kisses from his lips like bites at a juicy apple. Her slip is soon lost somewhere in the sea of bedsheets. Fingers latching on the buckle of his pants, working on zippers and fastenings—when he tears his mouth from hers with a sudden gasp.

"Saya… _wait_. I'm sorry. We shouldn't be doing this yet, should we? It's too soon. You can't possibly be ready for—"

She tries to laugh, but it garbles into a sob. "Solomon—I'm all right. Please, just—"

"No, I really don't think—Dr. Silverstein _specified_ —"

He tries to get up, but she surges to roll him beneath. His belt buckle is an icy shock against the flesh of her inner-thighs.

"Please, Solomon. I'm so tired of being treated like a paper doll. I'm fine, there's nothing to worry about. I wish you'd let me show you."

"Saya…"

"Please. Don't leave me alone, not after all this. I don't want to spend the night by myself, Solomon. _Please_."

A heartbeat's faltering, then something in him gives way. Leaning up, he kisses her again, the contact melting her like a somnolent drug.

She yanks off the remainder of his clothes with rubbery hands; his flesh is hot with impatience on her own. Sprawled beneath her, he makes such an appealing picture. So libidinously glassy-eyed and vulnerable. She has a sudden instinct to take charge, to be the solacer tonight, instead of the solaced. Show him that he can always trust her to be there for him.

But when she tries to pin him under, he tenses and resists. For a second they are locked in a wordless struggle.

"Solomon, wait. Just—"

She breaks off as he topples her back. A sinuous gasp escapes her as his lips slide down, a snake-trail of hot sucking kisses across her breasts and belly. Blowing on her wet skin, smiling as she shivers into gooseflesh. One hand slips between her thighs, already beginning a gentle ruthless caress that makes her pant and cry out, fingers digging into his shoulders, his hair.

Propped on an elbow, Solomon watches her writhe intently. Sharp teeth nipping at her mouth, sucking her lips and tongue. "God—you really want this, don't you? Say it."

"Solomon—"

"Tell me, Saya. I want to hear it on that pretty tongue of yours."

" _Please,_ I—" Her eyes are blazing red. Communicating beyond question what now eludes her entirely beyond speech.

She gasps as he seizes her wrists in response, pinning them flat above her head. Looming over her, between her parted legs, in that so-familiar overtaking. She watches the evolving red glow in his eyes, the slow smirk across his lips. The sequence makes her quiver as if he is already steeped full-length into her.

Her lips move, forming a _Please_ that fizzles like sparks in the air between them.

"At your command," Solomon breathes, right before fusing mouth and body to hers in a searing incursion of flesh.


	21. Overdosed

The moon strikes a silver ribbon at sea.

Saya breathes deep on the salt air. She sits facing the water, watching the unbroken white path of moonlight. Waves crash around her, receding slowly, streaming along her legs and washing the tension from her body.

Cleansing her.

It has been several months after she has awakened from her Long Sleep. The war is over. Red Shield works daily to wipe out every trace of the Delta67 project. Diva rests at peace; her daughters are fully-grown now, beautiful and loved, raised under Kai's watchful eye.

All the reins of responsibility have been gathered. The weight of duty lifted from Saya's shoulders. Leaving her free to be a normal woman, to enjoy life as she never had a chance to. All doors are open to her; the possibilities are limitless. She can finally do whatever she wants.

Except it terrifies Saya, because she has no idea what she wants to do at all.

She turns to regard Haji, perched beside her, elbows on his drawn-up knees. The seawater soaks the edges of his black pants; sand glistens like fairy-dust on the tails of his coat. Still, he seems uncaring of these externalities, motionless as a sepulcher by her side.

It is something she has always appreciated about him. His ability to blend into the shadows, to be no more intrusive than necessary. But also, that ability to just _be_ , immutable as tide against the seashore. Reminding her that she will never be alone.

And in his comforting influence, she finds, as always, the courage to speak her mind.

_"Can I ask you something, Haji?"_

_"Of course."_

_"In the war, when you…killed Amshel, did it bring you any satisfaction? Did it make you feel better, knowing he was probably as responsible as I was, for all the things Diva did?"_

Haji hesitates, as though balancing the yoke between answering tactfully, and in delving into the real truth.

_"I…cannot be sure, Saya. When we first fought at the MET, and the battle was won…I expected to feel some victory. A part of me even wanted to. If only for the sake that Amshel would never repeat his atrocities on anyone else. But… there was none."_

_"Why not?"_

_"Because even then, all I could think of was you. That you were down in that building with Diva, and that this battle might be your last. In the face of that, how could I allow myself to feel anything positive?"_

She bites her lip. The moon touches an outline across his face, seeming to drain the blue of his eyes. His appearance is both eerie and entrancing: an alabaster carafe rising out of the shoreline.

 _"That night, I was so sure that everything would end,"_ she admits. _"all I wanted was the chance to finally get some rest. I was…almost jealous of Diva, that way. Because she'd died before I had, and left me behind. After she was gone, I couldn't see any reason why I should remain alive either."_

 _"You were wrong about that, Saya_. _You had comrades and friends. Kai, and Red Shield—"_

 _"And you_. _I had you too. I always did."_

 _"And you still do."_ He says this simply, not as reassurance, but as a simple statement of fact.

Saya smiles and reaches for him, sand-grainy fingers twining with his. Their interlaced hands sparkle in the moonlight. She always adores this quality about the seashore. How it lends everything such a dazzling luster, as though all the stains have been cleared away.

 _"Haji…"_ she whispers.

_"Yes?"_

_"Haji, I'm…ashamed to say this, but I'm afraid. The war is over... and I'm free now. I should be so thrilled to go on with my new life. But... I'm not. I'm_ terrified _. God forgive me, Haji, but… I have no idea what I'm going to do now. I feel like I don't have a place for myself anymore."_

Haji's voice is gentle over the susurration of seawaves. _"That is nothing to be frightened of, Saya. You are bound to feel uncertain. After the war, it will be hard to resign yourself to what might seem like a more trivial life. Especially if you have spent so many years fighting, and that it is all you know."_

She closes her eyes, tightening her grip on his fingers. _"I know. That's what Kai told me. It's going to take time for me to get into the swing of things. But Haji…what if I never do? What if these memories of the war—what if they never go away? That's what I'm so afraid of. What if this new life…isn't going to be any better than my old one?"_

_"Saya, you cannot know this, until you have at least given yourself the chance to try."_

_"But what if…I end up doing something terrible again? What if I realize I can't live as a normal person at all?"_

Haji is silent. Saya can tell, by his pregnant silence, that he wants to tell her she shouldn't bear such preconceived notions.

But she can't help it. These burgeoning fears refuse to go unvoiced. Fear is still so much a part of her vital make-up, that she cannot take even one step forward, without its shadow looming over her head.

She knows that Haji wants her to live her new life, impelled by fresh purpose. She knows he wants her to be happy. But she can also see, painfully clear, that he does not hold the answers for her.

She must find those reasons within herself. Haji can offer her with only the foundation to build her new life upon. The remaining framework is still Saya's own responsibility to construct.

Except she cannot bring herself to construct anything upon it. Not yet.

She is still too afraid.

 _"Haji." S_ he draws her fingers from his. _"I…met Solomon the other evening."_

Haji is silent, but she senses his foreboding.

Solomon, Diva's errant Chevalier, who sacrificed his own life to save her's during the war, who miraculously survived to greet her at the Awakening—she is amazed at how easily he has ingratiated himself into her new lifestyle, among her human family.

Haji knows she has been spending time with him. She wonders if Haji can tell, how each time she sees Solomon, she is helplessly flung back to the night at his New York penthouse. To re-experiencing the allure of everything he said to her there, the enchanting promises he made.

An offer to start over completely, to never worry about the past again. Everything she craved for, but could never voice aloud. A chance to race beyond possible consolation to attain the impossible, to be completely _free_.

And even now, Solomon makes no secret that his offer still stands.

During the war, accepting him was an impossibility. Didn't matter how tempted, curious and half-mesmerized she was—resistance was imperative. Because it was wrong, he was an enemy, the antithesis of her duty, her beliefs, her _self_.

Except—

Except, then and now, there is something about him. Something so deliciously tantalizing, compelling. She can't keep away. His blood, his presence—sing to her. She'd felt it, when they first danced at the Lycee ball together. She still feels it. It isn't his fault, really. But it isn't an excuse, either. That night, in New York, she'd only withstood his allure because of Haji.

If he hadn't intervened—

Shame suffuses her. She drops her gaze, cheeks flaming.

Haji can't possibly be oblivious to certain looks between her and Solomon. The magnetism shimmers subtle and unmistakable between them with every meeting—no matter how Saya may try to suppress it.

He has said nothing about it to her—but Saya can _feel_ how much he hates it.

It is not just jealousy on his part; not just lingering mistrust. Haji's hostility seems to stem from a peculiar trepidation. As if, for Saya, Solomon may embody a very real danger. Not of a romantic suitor, but an _addiction._

 _"What… did he say to you?"_ Haji asks.

Saya wets her lips, shaping her own initials, then Haji's, into the sand. _"Oh, nothing. We just…talked a little bit. He told me about some beach on the Bahamas, where there was this festival happening. How…I should go there and try to enjoy myself. Get my mind off the war."_

_"A festival?"_

_"Mm. I guess he hoped it'd distract me. Mao told me she once went there on vacation; the place is supposed to be really beautiful. The beaches are absolutely pristine."_

Her fingers have carved a delicate S. G. into the sand. Except in this case, it is not _Saya Goldschmidt_ she has spelled out.

Flushing, she quickly rubs the letters before Haji can see.

 _"Would you like to go there, Saya?"_ Haji asks.

_"Hm?"_

_"To this festival at the Bahamas?"_

_"I…I don't know. It might be nice, I guess. Maybe when I'm over there, I'd stop worrying about the war. Because, you know, the faster I reach that point, the better."_

Haji reaches for her hand, gently pressing her fingers. _"You will forget about the war with time, Saya. But you should not expect it to happen overnight. You will have to work for it, not—"_

 _"Not expect some divine intervention."_ Saya exhales. " _I know that, Haji. But it's easier said than done. All those bad memories are still going to be there. And so is the fear. Maybe not… right now, while I'm here with you. But at other times. I know they're always going to be a part of my life. I'm worried that I'll never be able to move past them."_

_"It will be all right, Saya. You underwent so much in the war. I know you are strong enough to endure this too. And sooner or later, you will know as well."_

She tightens her grip on his hand, turning to meet his gaze. A fine streak of sand shimmers along the edge of his cheek, like an afterglow of the constellations above.

Reaching out, she gently thumbs the sand off, her fingers resting on his face. His flesh is as deliciously cool as the seawater. The contact seems to infuse her the same way—purifying each fear, leaving a resounding peace in its wake.

 _"How, Haji?"_ she says. _"How will I know when I'm strong enough to face this?"_

 _"When you stop being afraid_. _And when you do, you will know that half the battle has already been won."_

Saya manages a smile, even as she doesn't quite understand what he means.

Not until much later, when she realizes that, as long as Haji was by her side, she had never been afraid of anything at all.

* * *

Sunlight threads from the blinds at the window. It is the crux of noon when Saya stirs against Solomon.

Head cozied into the favorite place under the crook of his neck, hands nestled in the space between their bodies, legs tangled warm and slack with his. Haji's skin was always so cool on hers, but Solomon's is so _hot_. She's gotten used to waking up pasted to him in a balm of sweat.

Around her, his encircling arm is heavy, pulse beating a familiar tattoo against her cheek. Two knocks to her one. As if, in anything they do together, his exhilaration is double that of hers.

Sometimes, Saya wonders if his heartbeat still follows the pattern of his late Queen's, Diva's—just as Haji's pulse emulates her own. Diva always was more eager in several respects, than Saya herself.

Probably came from four decades barricaded in a tower.

Saya winces. _Don't think about that anymore._

Solomon twines a strand of her hair between his fingers, brushing it across her lips.

"You are," he whispers, "The very definition of total despair, and absolute _bliss_."

With a smile that is girlish but hardly innocent, Saya lifts her eyes to his. "Not despair, please. I don't want anything to do with that word. Never again."

He concedes with a lazy grin. Fingers slipping between them, fanning across her belly in a possessive starfish. Her entire body still reverberates from the aftereffects of their ravenous lovemaking, every muscle deliciously languid, as if drunk on wine. She already knows that she'll be wobbly as a newborn colt when she gets up, aware with every step of the tenderness between her thighs, of the bruises where Solomon has gripped her, the places where he has gnawed her skin into mottling welts that have yet to fade.

Bittersweet mementos of a night well-spent.

"You look so pretty when you've just woken up, Saya," Solomon says. "All sweet and tossed-about like that. I almost can't decide whether I want to watch you, or—"

Giggling, she catches his hand before it dips beyond her stomach. "I'd... rather you just watch for now. Saya's tired."

"Is that so? But my side of the bed's so dull and cold. And here you are, all nice and warm…"

"Mm. I always seem to get that way around you. But... could we maybe have some breakfast first? I'm really hungry."

"Breakfast? Of course. I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking. Would you like me to order up some deviled eggs for you? You did keep mumbling about eggs in your sleep."

Embarrassment surges through her. "I-I did?"

"Yes. You chatter about all sorts of food you're dreaming. And when you start talking about something less gladsome, then..." His voice grows teasing, melodic; he circles a slow fingernail across her navel. "Well, that's my cue to wake you up and give you something more interesting to toss and turn in bed for, isn't it?"

She blushes, and he chuckles, faint and fond. This is something about her that seems to fascinate him—the complete loss of inhibition she can display in the heat of the moment, be it in battle or bed, and the shyness that always consumes her when even a hint is mentioned afterward.

"You are feeling all right, aren't you?" he says. "Last night was too—"

Saya draws her nails down his ribs in perfect mimicry of his gesture. Smiling when he ripples at the touch, catlike. She knows he's ticklish. "Solomon, I'm _fine_. I hardly think I need to prove that anymore."

He takes her hand, gently kissing her fingers. "All the same, I am truly sorry, for how I behaved with you earlier, angel. I was just so angry…I couldn't think straight. But that can't begin to justify the way I treated you. Least of all in your condition. You have forgiven me, haven't you?"

"I have, Solomon. It's all right. We both have a little bit of a temper. But I know you won't do that again. Neither of us will."

"That we won't." He draws her closer in, as if he'd like to stitch his body clean to hers, twine them together in a flesh-and-blood patchwork so they'd never seperate. And right now, floating on a lazy cloud of satisfaction, she'd do nothing to stop him.

"I've missed you," Solomon whispers, "All these weeks, even when you kept on fighting with me, I couldn't stop missing you. And when you fainted earlier, I was so sure something terrible had happened. That it was all my fault. I just can't _do_ without you anymore, Saya, even for a single moment. You know that, don't you?"

Eyes closed, she lets his warm breath tickle her hair. "I know, Solomon. I've missed you too."

"Let us promise there will be no more secrets between us. Wasting time in petty bickering is absolutely meaningless. We need to start over, as much for the sake of our daughters as ourselves."

"Mm. We really do. Maybe now, we can finally get to spend some time outdoors, instead of arguing all the time. And now you won't mind as much when I go out without the chauffeur."

"Without the chauffeur? Come now, Saya, let's not get too carried away."

"Hm? What do you mean?"

He pushes a strand of hair behind her ear. "You must take this one step at a time, angel. Resuming our bed life is one thing; wandering through the city unaccompanied is quite another. And look what condition you found yourself in when you went out earlier. You ended up passing out in your room."

"B-because I was tired and hungry, and you wouldn't let me out!"

"You know perfectly well it would never have happened if you'd listened to me in the first place. Didn't I tell you to stay indoors? No one was forcing you to sneak out after heaping me with lies. You have no one to blame for that irresponsible behavior but yourself."

Saya draws back to stare at him. "I told you already, Solomon. I was sick of being stuck in the suite. I _wanted_ to go outside."

"What you want and what is best for you are two very different things, my dear. It's like telling a child that she needs spinach when she throws a tantrum for chocolate. The latter will only have negative repercussions on her health, but she is incapable of realizing that."

"Solomon, I'm not a child! It's not your place to keep making all these rules for me! You have no right!"

His head tilts, eyes narrowing. "Not my _right_? Have you forgotten you are married to me, Saya? Forgotten that it is my daughters you are carrying? I have every right to ensure you don't hurt yourself, as you seem so determined to do. Honestly, has the war mentally damaged you in some way? Why must you defy me at every point, and refuse to listen to reason?"

"I'm not refusing to listen to reason! I just need you to give me a little space! You're constantly imposing orders on me, telling me how I should act and feel! I don't need you to correct me all the time—I'm old enough to know the difference between right and wrong!"

"If that were true, Saya, you would never have deceived me to begin with. Never have snuck out on such juvenile impulse, despite knowing that you are pregnant and need to be more careful. But did you? No. You immediately ran off to be with your Chevalier—even though that intrusive insect has absolutely no place in our marriage, no bearing in your life—"

Saya jerks upright, anger rekindling. "Don't drag Haji into this! I already told you, running into him was a coincidence! And he's still my friend! I can't just decide to stop seeing him—"

"If you had any consideration for me at all," Solomon says icily. "You wouldn't see him again at all."

"Wh-what? Why shouldn't I?"

"Why shouldn't you? Because whenever his name is so much as mentioned, you turn shrewish and loud-mouthed, as if you have something to hide. I wonder, Saya, did you even tell me the truth about where you went last night—or was my locking you indoors actually justified?"

Red film flashes before Saya's her eyes. Her lips fall open. " _Justified_? For shutting me in like a lunatic? How can you say something like that! You have no business in forbidding me from seeing Haji! It's not your place to—"

" _Not my place_?" Straightening, Solomon drags up her hand to point at her wedding ring. "Tell me something, Saya. When you accepted this ring from me, when you took your vows, did you understand what the term _commitment_ meant at all? Or did you have absolutely no concept of fidelity in the first place? Perhaps, given how twisted you have been all your life, you're incapable of even a shred of consistency—"

" _Incapable of—_? God, how can you _say_ these things to me? I've told you already, I haven't been unfaithful to you! Haji and I haven't done anything wrong! You have no right to accuse me of this!"

"You say that, yet the more determined you are to bring Haji into our lives, the more my accusations seem warranted. You are hiding something from me, Saya; I can feel it."

" _No_! I'm not hiding anything! Even if I _did_ go out to see Haji yesterday, that doesn't mean I've done anything wrong, Solomon! It doesn't give you any right to talk to me this way! Please, you have to trust me!"

His expression darkens. "I thought you said you didn't leave the suite to be with Haji."

"W-what?"

"You said you went out to be alone. That running into Haji was a coincidence."

"No, that's not what I—"

"You contradict yourself with every breath, Saya. Clearly your past has so warped you that you find nothing wrong with your own disgusting deception, no shame in accounting for it—"

" _No_! Solomon, _please_! Stop this! I'm telling you the truth, I'm not—"

"Not two-faced and backsliding as you've just shown yourself to be? Not selfish and immature and entirely incapable of keeping your word?"

" _Stop it! Stop talking to me this way_!" Reacting without thinking, her hand lashes across his cheek in a stinging slap.

Solomon's head snaps back. She sees the pale cords of his neck straining, muscles taut with the static of future violence. A sudden chill races through her; when Solomon faces her again, his lower-lip is bleeding.

Slowly, he touches the tip of his tongue to the wound. His gaze is frigid with disgust.

"And just when I assured myself you are nothing like Diva. Yet more and more, your behavior compels me to think otherwise."

Saya's heart is hammering. "Solomon, I-I'm sorry—but please! _Please_ stop saying all these things to me! I promise, I haven't been with Haji that way! I've done nothing wrong! You have no reason to treat me like this! Please, you need to trust me!"

"And thereby give you leave to behave as selfishly as you want?" Solomon swipes at his bloody mouth. "You have no limits, Saya. But there is a point, even to my patience, and you are wearing it dangerously thin."

"Solomon, I—"

She is pinned flat to the mattress in the next breath, wrists locked in his fists. That once-exhilarating gesture implemented during lovemaking, now transformed into this brutal pindown, as though in the undercurrent of a battle.

It will never feel the same to her again.

Solomon leans close. His voice is ominous in its icy clarity. "I am not a man for violence, Saya. Nor do I have any wish to hurt you. But if you do that to me, ever again, you will not like what happens. I am not your pin cushion, I am your husband, and I expect you to remember that. You are carrying my daughters, you are living under my protection, and I expect a little obedience from you in return."

"I…" Saya's scalp prickles in heavy déjà vu.

Every nerve in her body screams in warning, ordering her to struggle against him— _get up, shove him, get away_. But why can't she make herself _move_? Violent retaliation is what this situation warrants—she _feels_ it.

Yet her whole body feels paralyzed from head to toe.

Then Solomon's grip tightens on her wrists. And she realizes what this immobility is.

_Fear._

"Whatever you behaved like or were before this, you are not anymore. This is no longer your old life, and that includes your indiscretions from that time. I will not have you sneaking off to be with Haji again, and nor will I have you jeopardizing our marriage or your own safety. You will listen to me; you will do as you are told. With time, you will come to understand it is what's best."

Flesh buzzing, Saya can only stare at him.

Solomon's grip loosens. The cold sheen in his eyes melts to the usual placid green.

In a more familiar tone, he says, "Wash up and get dressed now. I'll have room service prepare a big breakfast for you. And you will take your blood in a glass, the way I do. Pricking yourself with needles to ingest from a blood pack is both masochistic and wrong. I do not want you feeding that way again. You must stop being ashamed of what you are. We are not human, after all. We have no reason to keep conforming to their ways, least of all in private."

He releases her wrists, straightening. Saya can still feel the hot bite of his fingertips on her flesh.

Reaching out, Solomon brushes a strand of hair off her face, as imperturbably as if nothing has happened. "There will be some changes made between us, but I'm sure we'll both be better for them. For one, you needn't sleep by yourself anymore. You are my wife, and its only right that we share a bed. _Dans la maladie et de la santé,_ after all. At least then, I can ensure you won't sneak off anywhere again. Your loyalties appear to be sadly skewed, but given your past, that shouldn't come as a surprise. At least now, I understand what is required to keep you."

Saya swallows, unable to repress the bile rising in her throat.

Solomon takes her chin, the gesture more of possession than comfort. "Get up now. And please wipe that pathetic expression off your face. It does not suit you. We're invited to an _al fresco_ party, later today, so be ready by two o' clock. I'll select something suitable for you to wear. Also, we will be heading to Greece by next week. You need to stay in more pleasant climate, after what happened here. Is all that perfectly clear, Saya?"

Saya can only nod, pulse skittering.

"Wonderful. I am glad we had this conversation. I believe there will be no more misunderstandings between us." Rising from the bed, Solomon shrugs nonchalantly back into his discarded clothes, as if he is alone in the room. "You will take the first shower, of course. I'll see to your breakfast in the meanwhile. Excuse me a moment?"

Buttoning up his shirt, he quits the room without a backward glance.

Leaving Saya lying where she is, staring at the closed door with nothing but her own breathing to fill her ears.

She isn't conscious of what triggers the suffocation in her chest. Only conscious that her breathing begins to escalate. Short dry gulps turning to frantic racing gasps. Then sound erupts into motion. She shoots up, hands moving across her shoulders, her wrists, her arms, as if checking for adhering bruises, swatting off crawling insects.

Her face is blazing with incredulity and sheer buzzing panic.

_Oh god…_

_What...what_ was _that?_

Her mind refuses to affix on what just happened. Going through the sequence of events, she has no idea what went wrong, what she said or did to make Solomon behave this way.

But suddenly, she just wants a bath. Wants to wash herself, over and over, erase this sickening chill across her body.

Her fingers snag the bloodstone, still dangling at her throat. She grips it in a tight fist as delayed reaction crashes over her. A spiral of sense-memory, everything she and Solomon did the previous night. Words, sounds, touches, everything she still wears like a sensory gloss over her flesh—smirched and sticky and storm-tossed.

And directly beneath that, boiling and molten, her memories of _Haji_.

Haji's eyes, his face, his lips. The red sunset and snapping black wings; cool fingers resting on hers, a low voice asking her to be strong, to take care of herself. Everything she has pushed to the back of her mind, convinced herself to put behind her—it all floods back out, hot and innate as her sudden tears.

_Oh God. Oh God._

Her stomach lurches, as if to expel every reminder of last night, purge her body of Solomon's scent and taste.

Scrambling out of bed, Saya barely makes it to the bathroom before she doubles over as if overdosed, vomiting uncontrollably.


	22. Addict

She smiles in every photograph.

Teeth bright against rosy lips, eyes glinting in the camera flash. Her black hair gives off an impossible luster; skin dewy as burnished gold. Backgrounds shifting, sunrises to nightfall, pastoral forests to avant-garde nightclubs.

She always looks directly at the camera, vibrant whether in white lawn or black satin. Hair sometimes drawn up off her face, dark wisps floating around her cheeks. Sometimes worn loose and thick, snaking in sultry waves across her shoulders.

And Solomon is always beside her.

Fingers twined with hers, arm draped possessively around her shoulders or waist. Never a moment when some part of her isn't touching him. Never a single moment where she isn't wearing his ring like a frigid scab on her finger.

And Haji watches, seething, as her gaze grows more heavy-lidded with every shot. Innocence peeling like a fruit-rind, leaving only this secretive satisfaction behind.

Her smile is a replica of Solomon's now. Sleek and sated, full of untold mysteries and possibilities.

No signs of that hollow-eyed, sword-wielding warrior in sight.

No signs of _Saya_.

Seated alone on a sunlit rooftop, Haji sifts through the digital album Kai lent him. Full of photos of Saya, taken on her honeymoon, sent to the rest of the family. Saya waving in each one, as if to reassure her loved ones that she hasn't forgotten them.

Glossy celluloid pledges, illustrated with exotic locations and stunning smiles.

Except, in Haji's mind, they look like SOS signals.

" _Look at this._ " Mao smirked at the album. " _Solomon is just all_ over _her_!"

Lewis chuckled, deep and rich as melted chocolate. " _Well, she sure doesn't seem to be minding. See how she's grinning in that one_? _It's like she's got some big secret she's too embarrassed to tell._ "

" _Secret, schmecret! Just_ look _at them. They're practically glued at the hip! Why didn't they just shimmy into one pair of jeans, or_ —"

" _Mao_." Kai cut in with a growl. " _Shut up, would you?_ "

" _Huh? Why, what's up with_ —?"

Then her eyes landed on Haji.

Saya's Chevalier hovered by the door, as calm and solemn-faced as ever. His expression conveyed no hint that he'd overheard their conversation. But no one doubted for a second that he had.

" _Uh…hey Haji_ ," Kai muttered. " _Didn't hear you come in. You really oughtta wear a little bell or something_."

" _I apologize_. _I did not intend to intrude_."

" _Um…doesn't matter. We were just—"_ In an inept one-handed gesture, Kai attempted to close the album before Haji could see.

Except Haji had seen it a mile away.

" _May I have a look_?"

The request fell involuntarily from his lips. The others' expressions reflected his own shock, unexpressed and unexpected.

Kai hesitated, handing the album over.

With a low _thank you_ , Haji took the booklet. He sifted through it, absorbing every detail like it cast no effect on him whatsoever. Like each photograph wasn't, in fact, a flaming brand on his psyche.

He had a vague impression of Lewis muttering about needing to be going, and departing with a clapped hand on Kai's shoulder. Mao trilling about a dress at the drycleaners, and breezing out after swiping the car keys at the bureau.

Left alone with Kai, Haji remained where he was, scrolling through each page as though absorbed in the lines of a storybook.

With a cleared throat, Kai leaned against the wall opposite to Haji, hands shoved in his pockets. His expression conveyed an awkward, out-of-depth sort of sympathy.

" _She…looks like she's doing okay, huh_?"

" _Yes_."

Eyes on the floor, Kai chewed the inside of his mouth. " _I…uh, I know, this wasn't easy for you. Letting her go, I mean_."

Haji paused, surprised. He did not expect Kai to say this.

True, after everything they'd endured in the war, they were on reasonably good terms. When two strangers fight side-by-side, when both are tied by their dedication to one girl, an understanding between them is unavoidable and inevitable. But, in Kai and Haji's case, it was an understanding that didn't require more than five sentences a month.

For Kai to speak this way at all... well, Haji wasn't certain whether it was pity, understanding, or both.

Kai stubbed his shoe on the floorboards. " _Really…it wasn't easy for me either. Just letting her go like that. But it was her choice, and she seemed to think Solomon would make her happy. What was I gonna say in the face of that? I…I've always wanted her to be happy. After all the shit she's been through, she deserves to be, right? Its only fair to let her make her own choices_."

" _Yes_."

" _And she seems… taken care of. Whenever I talk to her on the phone, or when she sends us these photos. She seems happy. That makes it all worth it in the end_."

Haji nodded, but said nothing.

Kai glanced away, rubbing a palm across his jaw in a sandpaper rasp. " _She… asks about you sometimes, y'know. About what you might be doing. I'm never completely sure what to tell her. What the hell_ are _you doing?"_

Haji hesitated, balancing between telling Kai it was none of his business, or keeping silent altogether.

Instead, he said, " _I am book-keeping at a musical store. And in evenings I give lessons to young children interested in cello."_

" ' _Young children'? What's that a code for? Assassins in progress?"_ With a chuckle, Kai rubbed his eyes, " _I figured, with the hours you keep, that maybe you were working as a bartender or something. Can't be a bouncer—not nearly scary enough for that. Or maybe you're a—what do the French call 'em?_ _Oh yeah:_ chevalier d'industrie _. Pun intended_."

This time, Haji looked Kai askance. " _Your accent is terrible._ "

" _After how long I've raised the twins, my forte is little girls, not lingo_." Kai paused, reassessing his own words. " _Shit_. _That just made me sound like a pedophiliac sicko, didn't it?"_

" _Somewhat."_

Kai sobered slightly. _"Look, I just mean…whenever I talk to Saya, I get the feeling she's worried about you. Even though I'll admit she's got a real funny way of showing it."_

" _What do you mean?"_

" _Well, half the time when we talk, she asks about you every minute. The rest of the time, she sounds all chipper and happy and barely mentions you. It's weird."_

Haji paused mid-page, eyes on Kai's.

Yes. That _was_ strange.

Aloud, he said, _"What do you mean?"_

 _"I'm not sure. This one time, she called at a really off hour. Kept asking where you were, if I had some way of contacting you. Like she was in trouble and needed help from God, almost."_ He let off a laugh, but his eyes were uneasy. _"Anyway, back then I had no clue where you were. I tried to ask what was wrong, but she suddenly said she had to go and just… hung up."_

Haji stared, bemused.

 _"Anyway, a few days later, she called me again. I asked her what was wrong that last time, why she'd sounded so weird. Except she acted like it hadn't even_ happened _. It was the strangest thing. She just… laughed it off. Said it was just a pregnancy mood-swing, or some shit like that. I had no idea what to say to her."_

Haji frowned. _"Did she seem all right?"_

 _"Yeah. I mean, she seemed all right. Said she was in Belize, and that the seaside reminded her of Okinawa, so she was a little homesick."_ Kai knit his brow. _"Still… I kinda think she was worrying about you."_

 _"She has no reason to worry. You should tell her so_."

" _I'd rather you tell her yourself. I mean, Jesus, get a cellphone and keep in touch with her once in a while. Send her an e-mail every few days—you do know how to operate a computer, right? If you don't, Lewis can teach you to be as good as he is. He taught the twins how to design—"_

" _I would not want to intrude on her new life that way_ ," Haji interposed quietly.

" _Intrude? Keeping a link isn't an intrusion, Haji. It's norm. It's a way to keep some sort of balance in your life. And you need one of those. Like a—a midpoint, you know_?"

Haji didn't reply.

Exhaling, Kai slouched against the wall. " _Then again, midpoints aren't easy for everyone to pull off, right? I know, when I was a kid, they weren't for me. Everything just had to be all or nothing, win or lose. Like in the war. We were all either gonna make it back home together, or all of us would die. But really, it ended up…somewhere in between. We won…but we lost so much in that whole deal_."

Haji was silent.

He didn't say it, any more than Kai did, but for a moment Riku's bright presence seemed to flit past them like a sunlit specter. So many years had passed, yet like Kai, Haji could never forget the young boy, or the warm hope of everything he embodied.

And he could never bring himself to forget either, how he told Riku that he could never interfere in Saya's life, or have any bearing on her decisions. It was not his place; those choices were hers alone to make.

They still were.

Kai cleared his throat. " _You know I shouldn't say this, but…I was kinda rooting for Saya to stay on with you. In my mind, no one's ever gonna be good enough for her. But I always figured…the best choice would be you. You knew her better than anyone else did. It seemed to be the most likely toss-up."_

 _"Life does not always rely on likely toss-ups_."

" _Yeah, I hear you_. If you love something, let it go _. Wonder what sick fuck came up with that_?"

" _One no sicker than the rest of them, to be sure_."

Kai let off a crusty laugh. " _Whoa, Haji. I'm actually catching some sarcasm in there. There might just be hope for you yet_."

" _Perhaps_." But Haji's eyes were pinned to the photographs.

Looking at Saya's face, he had a sudden sense that something was… wrong.

Her eyes, the way she held herself...

_Why does she look so...?_

After a moment's hesitation, he glanced back at Kai. " _Would you…mind if I borrowed this?"_

Kai blinked. " _What? Yeah… sure, I guess. If that's what you want."_

" _It is."_ Tucking the album into the folds of his coat, Haji nodded at Kai, a thanks and salutation. " _Goodbye, Kai_."

And now, Haji sits perched on the rooftop, with no more than the setting sun for company. Studying each photograph, a sharp disquiet building within.

In each photo, Saya smiles.

And more and more, the smile never reaches her eyes.

He isn't sure when he begins to notice a dullness to her gaze. A certain tension to her shoulders. It's as if the tighter Solomon holds her, the more determined Saya is to keep her eyes on the camera. As though she can't bring herself to look at her husband.

As though she is _afraid_ to.

Frowning, Haji sifts further through the pictures. In each one, he sees the same thing. Saya, smiling sweetly at the camera. But less because she wants to, and more because it is a moment for smiling. Her eyes piercing into his, even from a photograph.

Silently pleading as if for a divine deliverance.

Perversely, he notices that she seems physically _glued_ to Solomon. No resistance in the way she presses into the circle of his arms. No revulsion in the way she allows his hand to dangle light and nonchalant right above her breast.

They pose in sunshine in one shot, side-by-side. Solomon's golden hair mussed and glowing, eyes half-lidded with satisfaction. Saya's features squinched like a kitten's, his arm encircling her waist, fingers spread over her belly. Her own fingers are curled into his front belt loop—no need for Haji to go into detail over what that too-innocent gesture signifies.

Even though she seems to avoid Solomon's gaze, it's clear the physical quotient in their marriage is fanatical—and mutually so.

These are two people who stimulate, who satisfy each other.

But her eyes…

_Half the time when we talk, she asks about you every minute; the rest of the time, she sounds all chipper and happy and barely mentions you. It's weird._

Haji's frown deepens. It's not in his nature to jump to conclusions. Nonetheless, he is gifted with a shrewd intuition, one that has rarely ever failed him, whether in daily life or on the battlefield.

And what his intuition tells him now…

_That look on her face…_

_Something is wrong._

_Very wrong._

The tighter Solomon holds her, the more Saya seems mentally somewhere else. It's as if she can't bring herself to meet his gaze. As if she might end up looking into a catastrophe that hasn't yet occurred. Her heavy eyes… that somnolent smile… she seems to be steeped in heroin. No awareness of her surroundings, or of herself.

She reminds Haji of a drug addict.

Sluggish, smashed; afraid to face her own reflection, afraid to acknowledge her own poison. Refusing to admit that it won't be long before she succumbs to that fatal inevitable overdose.

Haji feels a chill spread through him.

He knows of war veterans, catastrophe survivors, who find it impossible to function after the passage of disaster. Who rely on props, both chemical and physical, to help them get through their lives. People who develop dependencies, as much from personal vulnerability as the compulsion for relief itself.

Could it be possible…could it be _conceivable_ …

_No. She isn't like that._

_Saya is strong. She always has been._

_She will get through this. She will be all right._

_It is my imagination, nothing more. It is all in my head._

His eyes fall on the photographs again. On that sloe-eyed face, absorbed in an expression half blissful, half hallucinatory. Smashed, drugged, call it whatever he will—but completely out of her senses.

And begging someone to make it stop.

 _It is all in my head,_ Haji tells himself, but with less conviction each time.

_It is all in my head._

* * *

Saya wonders if addictions are born of people as much as substances.

She thinks of junkies who'd lie sprawled in the shadier alleys of Okinawa. Eyes dead, faces vacant, silently pleading for another fix, another absolution. Bodies treading the step-by-step path to oblivion.

She wonders if she's treading that path now.

Since Milan, nothing between her and Solomon is the same. He coerces her, not by blows or force, but with icy looks and words. She no longer has a say in her life. Not privacy nor privilege. Her every move is scrutinized, every gesture circumvented.

When she goes out in town, Solomon always accompanies her. When they dine out, he orders her food. When she shops, he selects her attire. When she sleeps, he lies with one arm and leg hooked around her. If she uses the bathroom, he stands waiting at the door. If she receives phonecalls from Kai, he sits right beside her.

He listens carefully to every word she utters; his eyes demarcate her every expression and glance. She finds herself saying less to Kai each time, lying more and more. Forcing laughter and lightness, merrily convincing him _Everything's fine, the tour's going great, of course I'm happy._

Except she's not—oh god, _she's not._

In front of company, Solomon is still very much the man she married. So courteous, so ineffably affectionate. An absolute dream come true. He embellishes her with expensive gifts and garnishes her in extravagant jewels; he whisks her off to fancy hotels and exotic locations.

The fortune-hunting vixens at every party glower at Saya. She almost hears them hiss that _they're_ the ones who deserve to be in Saya's place.

How startled they'd be, she thinks, if they knew how willingly she'd swap.

When they dance, Solomon always holds her too tight. When they sit, he always keeps a firm hand on her shoulder. When they walk, he always leads her by the elbow. Fingers latched on every moment, like choke-chains made flesh.

An illustration of whom she belongs to, and always will.

Behind closed doors, it's worse. She can't escape his rampant spotlighting. His attention for her has escalated almost to the point of bottomless _obsession_. It infuriates him if she so much as denies him the ingress of her gaze. It incenses him if she tries to avoid his presence for more than a minute at a time.

He wants her to look at no one but him, _think_ of nothing but him. Wants to possess her mind and body down to the faintest thought or breath—doesn't want her to _breathe_ , to _think_ , unless he wills it—not unless it is for and about _him_.

Their interactions have devolved into a shapeless anagram; they agree on absolutely nothing. He hears nothing she says, twists her every word to assimilate his own purposes. He picks out a thousand flaws, a million errors, in her every belief and opinion. Puts her down, makes her feel stupid, childish, _insane_ , with just one well-modulated look or word.

He addresses her, always, with an archness that's like a leash around her throat.

Worse, her pregnancy jams her to the spot. Day by day, she feels the babies growing bigger inside her. She is growing rounder by the week, burgeoning like a container. The morning sickness has let up, but since Milan, her health and willpower— _no, it's been like this ever since Solomon first took you to bed_ —are no longer what they used to be.

In the war, she'd gone for nights without rest, fought for days without respite. But now even climbing up the stairs leaves her breathless.

She and Solomon have retreated to Ambergris Cay in Belize for the spring, settling into a sprawling resort there. The shimmering waters and powdery sands would enthrall even the most jaundiced traveler. But Saya is too fatigued to venture further than the main lobby.

When she can, she hides at the maternity shops in the San Pedro town. The bodyguard is always with her, but she's desensitized herself to his presence. Under his nose, she pokes through racks of baby clothes and shoes. Buying things in blue and red, to match eye colors, skin tones, hair.

Trying to imagine each garment on her babies' faces. Trying to imagine her babies' _faces_ —without success.

She can't visualize the upcoming childbirth without a heavy sense of terror. When her daughters arrive, will things between her and Solomon improve—or deteriorate further?

She sleeps most of the day and half the night, dashing all Solomon's attempts to involve her in the nightlife. He expects her to attend cocktail parties, decked out in the latest flowy gowns he's purchased to show her off in. He wants to drive her around in his sportscar, head inland and check out the wildlife resorts, to fly her by private jet over the Belize barrier reef.

But Saya just wants to be left alone.

There is no one for her to talk to here. She has nothing to say to the businessmen's wives in their social circles. She wants warm faces of friends and family around her. She misses Kai's overcooked meals and the bright chatter of her nieces; misses Mao's teeth-clenched tirades and Lewis' jovial laughter.

Misses Haji playing his cello, prancing arachnid fingers and well-worn horsehair bow sawing across strings. Misses his cool hands on her forehead, his soft voice in her ear. Whispering _there is no need to worry, everything will be fine_.

When Haji used to say it, she could actually make herself believe him.

As time grinds on, she smiles less, finds fewer things to be happy for. The despair that infused her in the war, making her yearn for death every moment, creeps back like ocean tide. She sinks into herself—returning to those same empty silences that were once her greatest means of self-defense.

Silence has always been her prison and refuge. Cutting her off from her problems, isolating her from her friends and loved-ones. Behind its walls, she can be safe for a few moments; vanish from herself and from her own reality.

But now, all it takes is once glance or touch from Solomon—and all those barriers shrivel to dust. All it takes is a few whispered words in her ear, one feathery caress or kiss—and suddenly, every cutting command he uttered earlier dissolves from her mind.

It is madness, yet she can't _stop_ it.

Every night, every morning, every evening and afternoon, she finds herself succumbing to him all over again—to his mouth, his body, his touch.

Their couplings are more frequent now. Hungrier. Despite the growing distance between them, Saya admits she's never reached such catastrophic heights as Solomon's granted her these few months. He's made her sigh, made her sing, made her _scream_. It's like spiraling inside a hurricane—no awareness of the real world, no control over her mind and body.

No idea when this havoc will end, and if her feet will ever touch the ground again.

The dynamic between them is so different now. He's no longer content to let her stay passive and supine. She has to take a more active role, meet him midway in whatever they do. In public, he wants the prop of a submissive wife. But behind closed doors, he wants a playmate, not a porcelain doll.

And with every broken gasp he draws from her, every irrepressible tremor and sob, he wants her to know she is _his._ Wants to infuse himself, inside-out, into the very air she _breathes_.

Frequently, he twists one situation into another. One minute they can be arguing about names for the babies, where to have dinner, the chauffeur, the hotel—and next, he will lean close to whisper in her ear, _lift up your dress and turn around to face the wall_ , and the fight will end in a frantic suffocating embrace in the darkness.

It happens more than once, and in the most scandalous of venues. In a flowerbed by some deserted park, in the dim alley behind an exclusive club, against the unlocked door of their hotel room, and once even at Solomon's office desk, where they were walked in on by one of his startled young assistants.

To this day, the young man insists he saw nothing, but Saya notices that whenever he meets them at parties, he can never look them in the eye.

Ideally, she should be mortified. But in truth, her appetites are ferocious enough that she relishes each union without contention. This is one need between her and Solomon that feels entirely equal, mutual. She can match him rough for rough. She can take anything he dishes out; scratches, bites, pulled hair, torn clothes or toppled furniture, and reimburse in equal measure.

But in this, as all else, he prefers to be the one to initiate it. He's coolly rebuffed her rare attempts at physical overtures, as if he suspects she means to distract him—or gain the upper-hand. But he might at any moment get that hot glint in his gaze, or tug at her arm in unspoken command—so she knows to sink to her knees before him, his fingers threading imperiously into her hair as she undoes his flies; or to perch herself on the nearest piece of furniture and gather her dress into her lap, flexing her thighs open as he hungrily burrows his mouth between them; or to brace her hands against the closest terrace railing or windowsill or table as he takes her, without preliminaries or discussion, her first flinching gasps of shock giving way to stuttering cries as he rules her—with filthy whispered praises and hot breath stirring the hair on her nape, with the fullness of him, hot and heavy, stretching her open, and his fingers tantalizing her in front, cruel flickers of sensation that make her shiver and jerk and plead.

Harsh, dictatorial—keeping her at the mercy of his pace, his methods. Reminding her, as he wrings her to the frantic pitch of pleasure, that _he_ wields the power, not she.

The first time slips with eerie smoothness into the second. Then the fourth. Then the eighth. Like a spiraling addiction—easier to justify, harder to be ashamed of, with every surrender.

At least this way, she can forget about everything except the intensity of her own sensations. Let Solomon propel her, swift and irrevocable, to the oblivion of her own climax. And when it's all over and she falls gasping against him, bodies melded slick with sweat, limbs puddling to liquid exhaustion, she can close her eyes and pretend it is _Haji_ holding her, _Haji_ whose kisses and welts she wears like pictograms on her satiated flesh.

Imagining Haji makes easier to explain why she endures Solomon's touch—not just endures it, but _craves_ it. _Revels_ in it.

But the nights when Solomon is sweet and gentle with her are worse.

In those moments, gazes tangled in the amalgam of fevered kisses and shaky sighs, there's no way to hide. Not from him, or from herself. Because for a few sweet moments, he seems to become again, the man she first married. Making her feelings for Haji, her doubts and regrets, that much _harder_.

In those moments, cellos and blue hair-ribbons fade to the corners of her mind. Right then, immersed in silken sheets and warm skin, she is happily married, traveling the world, carrying the children of a man who adores her.

But even those moments, in the face of eternity, aren't enough to erase Haji completely.

In a way, each tender caress may as well leave blazing furrows on her skin. Each tongue-trailing kiss may as well be a mouthful of venom. Every interlude just leaves her floating on a sea of uncertainty. It changes nothing between her and Solomon. He just reverts to the usual arrogant coercion the second he is dressed again.

Lovemaking without love, intercourse without discourse.

A paradox, as everything in their relationship is devolving into.

But despite the conflict of these months, she can't make herself _leave_ him. Her condition has left her stoppered in every sense, forced to rely on Solomon for every little thing. She tells herself that if she holds on, maybe things can work out between them. This rollercoaster of sex and fighting will _have_ to get better at some point.

And whenever she and Solomon laugh together at a silly joke, whenever he slips by her dressing-table each night to gently braid her hair and press kisses to her nape until she smiles for him, whenever he stops mid-conversation on his cellphone to do no more than help her into a chair and press cold compresses to her forehead when she's sick, or when he curls up by her feet at odd moments just to press his cheek to her belly and hear the babies' heartbeats, it's _impossible_ to imagine leaving him.

Until the chain of manipulation begins afresh.

Sometimes, Saya wonders if the war really _has_ twisted her. Maybe she's grown addicted to pain, dependent on the constant swing between euphoria and misery.

 _Dependent_. God, yes.

That's exactly what Solomon has turned her into. Utterly dependant on him.

Like a junkie.

As time crawls by, she seems to branch into divergent facets. The ravenous paramour who fulfills Solomon's needs by nightfall, the docile china-doll he wears on his arm by daylight—and into that seething part of her that still lives by her blade and sails by her heart.

That part Solomon's trying to crush with each passing day.

Whenever she is alone, she cries. Ghostly memories of her family, Kai and her nieces, crowd her at every moment. But somehow, they only make her loneliness worse.

And of course, no one pervades each thought more than _Haji_.

She realizes, too late, how her Chevalier's unwavering devotion had been her armor in this life. Kept her shielded from the ugliness of the war, kept her sane and whole.

And like a fool, she'd abandoned him right before stepping into the most dangerous battle of her life.

The grief steeps her dreams now.

Once, on an afternoon while Solomon is at a meeting, she reads a book by Emily Bronte— _Wuthering Heights_. Reads about a young woman who loved one man— her dark-haired, enigmatic childhood friend—but married another—a fair-haired affluent romantic suitor.

A decision based on practicality, rather than compatibility—even as, until her dying day, her love for her old friend remained eternal.

And Saya reads a single line that suffocates her in such grief she has to fight to breathe:

_'He's always, always in my mind — not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself — but as my own being.'_

She sits there, reading that line over and over. Tears filling her eyes and rolling down her face, splashing wet dots against the page, smearing letters until she can't see them anymore.

And in the back of her mind, a tiny voice whispers:

_What have I done?_

_What have I_ done _?_


	23. Detoxification

**CW: Self-harm/Violence/Suicidal mentions**

* * *

In Berlin, she attends a funeral for Solomon's colleague.

It doesn't surprise her. She feels walled in by death wherever she goes.

The funeral is held on a bleak morning. Sky oppressive with rain, as if the heavens too, are fighting tears.

Saya knows the feeling.

She stands beside Solomon through the service, hands clasped over her rounded belly. The babies keep kicking, off and on, like sharp hiccoughs. Solomon's expression is calm, but he frequently checks his watch. She can feel his stymied impatience.

Her husband doesn't care for funerals. As an immortal, he allots little empathy for death. The issue is as removed for Chiropterans as illness and ageing. A pathetic human weakness—just one of the many among them.

But Saya envies these humans, who at least have a rest from this life. She even envies the late gentleman's widow—a graceful matron with silver hair and deep lines on the sides of her mouth. The lady holds herself in flawless check through the burial. But Saya practically senses her latent grief.

Clearly, this is a woman who loved her husband, understood him well.

Saya can't say her own marriage is anything upto par with that.

 _"I'm terribly sorry for your loss,"_ Solomon says after the concluded service. His words are elegantly emotionless; Saya knows he just wants to exit this dirge of death and go home. _"Your husband was a remarkable man. Our prayers are with him."_

The lady politely accepts his hand.

 _"He would've been happy to know, how many of his friends could be here. And that they still think of him."_ Her eyes meet Saya's, their impact like a prickling lash. _"After a point, we realize that the only people who matter are those who stuck with us through thick and thin. They're the only ones who understand us, and whom we can completely trust."_

And as she takes Saya's hand, accepting her tentative condolences in turn, Saya wonders if she can see the tears burning in her eyes.

Not out of sympathy for the lady's loss, but the enormity of her _own_.

_Understanding. Trust._

She'd had all that too, once. Held all that devotion like precious liquid in her cupped palms.

And like an idiot, instead of drinking it in, she'd let it slip between her fingers.

_Haji…_

During the drive back, Saya rests her head on the window, body curled away from Solomon. She feels him watching her from the corner of his eye, but doesn't look at him. Any conversation between them just ignites into an argument these days. It's better to avoid talking to him at all.

She recalls, bittersweet, when their drives together were so much _fun_. Careening at full speed through streetlit freeways. Stolen kisses and giggles between each traffic light, his hand curling around hers between each gear-switch. Her own fingers slipping down his tie, tugging his shirt; traveling places that often made him gasp and veer off the road. Remembering how they'd cut the drive short so many times, taking a detour behind some dark lane. Acting like frisky teenagers, a tumble of squirming limbs and suffocated cries in the backseat—almost getting caught by a patrolman once. Arriving for each party an hour late; leaving an hour early to begin the game anew.

She'd sworn, once, that there were no two people more enthralled with each other than she and Solomon seemed to be.

But now, a disquiet fills her. It hasn't occurred to her until the funeral, how little intimate contact she and Solomon have with the outside world. Her own family is miles away. Solomon has no real friends, no support system. They live together in an enclosed void, completely cut off from human touch. Traveling from country to country, orbiting each other in an endless give and take, like some black hole eating itself alive.

She hasn't thought about it before. But the implications unnerve her now. It feels unhealthy, perverse. The war has shown her that isolation is the first step to madness. Before the MET showdown, she remembers how insistent Haji had been, for her to amalgamate with her family again, to rebuild human connections.

_Holding onto someone else's hand for a while… it isn't necessarily a bad thing, Saya._

Except in those days, her sword was all she'd wanted to hold. She'd said it was all she needed.

 _God, how wrong I was_.

 _It was_ Haji _who I needed all along._

_And I never even realized it…_

She's been so ungrateful, so _stupid_ , it is staggering.

"I had no idea you were so softhearted when it came to funerals," Solomon says coolly.

Saya blinks. "What?"

"I have never seen something quite like your behavior. To be so heartbroken over a mere stranger's death. One would think _you_ were the widow, rather than his wife."

"That's… actually who I was thinking of. His wife."

"Ah. Poor woman, I suppose. She was very devoted to her husband. Never argued or complained. She did her best to make his life as comfortable as possible."

 _Why can't_ you _be more like that?_ She hears it clearly in his silence.

"She's a lucky woman," Saya whispers.

"Why? Because her husband passed away?"

She refuses to rise to his sneer. "No. Because they obviously loved each other. More than the fact that she listened to him or made his life easy. They were two people who understood each other."

"That hardly matters now. The man's dead and buried."

"It still counts for something. That kind of love isn't available to everyone."

"I still fail to understand how that makes her _lucky_."

"You would." She turns to face the window.

"Precisely what does that mean?"

Saya doesn't answer.

Solomon opens his mouth to snap, but she isn't looking at him anymore. He glances back at the road, knuckles whitening on the steering wheel.

They spend the remaining journey in frozen silence.

* * *

The hotel suite is white and minimalist.

The floor-to-ceiling window frames the city skyscrapers like a mural. Lights reflecting off the polished marble floors, the angular furniture, like crenellations of ice. Solomon has a fondness for this modernistic architecture. So different from the baroque splendor Saya was raised in at the Zoo—or the cozy atmosphere of Omoro. She despises her surroundings. Each hotel and villa, though brilliant and contemporary, always feel so _frigid_. Everything too neat, almost unloved.

She longs to see a pair of sneakers strewn at a corner. A book lying facedown on the arm of a couch; a half-empty packet of wasabi-coated peanuts on a table.

A coffin-shaped cello-case at the door.

She and Solomon sit on opposite sides of the lounge, divided by a yellow silk lampshade. The light brightens the tips of Solomon's hair, casting a brilliant white flicker on the wineglass of blood before him. Keen-eyed, he reviews the investments on his blackberry. He's entered a very prosperous financial period these few months. Saya wonders if it's some divine compensation, to make up for his home life.

Or lack of it.

She knits listlessly at a pair of baby bootees, needles clicking sharply in the hush. A hobby she'd never cared for, in her Zoo days. But which she's now found herself reverting to, just to keep her mind centered.

Solomon is but five feet away from her, yet the distance seems vast. They may as well be two strangers staying at the same hotel, embarking on separate journeys.

She wants to retire to her room, but she fears making any moves to rouse her husband. The moment she goes to bed, he'll automatically invite himself in too. And though her hands already itch to sink into his hair at this moment, to feel heated skin and sharp teeth on her fingertips, she _must_ wean herself off it.

Not after the funeral they attended—and what she has realized there. A comprehension of what she and Solomon just don't share, for this marriage to go further.

_Trust. Understanding._

Physical intimacy with Solomon is futile—each day makes this more painfully obvious. Sex, no matter how much she may need it, merely paints an illusion of closeness. It simply stagnates the real issues—until they escalate and erupt as soon as that tenuous threshold gives way.

 _It's pointless, no matter how good it might feel_. _It's pointless because it's not going to change anything._

 _At the rate we're going,_ nothing's _going to change._

Not unless she can tamp herself down, be the submissive wife Solomon wants. His idea of harmony being total control over her, and the refusal to let her be independent at all costs. He may believe he's doing the right thing, protecting her from herself. But his methods are little better than that of a boa constrictor—the harder she struggles, the tighter he'll keep coiling around her.

Inside her, the babies kick. Yet another reminder, that where some things may be completely irretrievable, others _must_ change, and soon. If she and Solomon continue in this warped manner, they _will_ drive each other crazy.

Her nape tingles as Solomon sets his blackberry down, abruptly appearing behind her.

"It's late, Saya. Come to bed now."

Saya's fingers tighten on her knitting. "I—I'm not sleepy."

"Regardless, it has been a very long day. Staying up so late is not good for the babies."

 _It's not the babies you want to get me in bed for, and we both know it_ , she seethes.

"I'll just knit a little while longer. I'm fine."

"I think you've knitted enough. And really, it is impossible for me to concentrate with that incessant clicking."

Saya's eyes narrow. "I'd walk by myself on the patio, if you hadn't ordered me to ' _stay where I can see you'_."

"You've been very pale the entire day. I wanted to watch you in case anything might happen. The further into your pregnancy you get, the lesser interest you take in caring for yourself, or our babies."

"I _would_ be interested in taking care of them—if _you_ didn't have a dozen problems with everything I do."

"Don't blame me for your own irresponsibility, Saya. Really, your stubborn attitude every moment makes it clear how utterly incapable you are of—"

Putting aside her knitting, Saya rises. "I'm not interested in your lectures, Solomon. I'm taking a walk downstairs."

She turns to head for the door. But Solomon is already standing before her, in one of those lightning-fast cutoffs. She practically feels the gust of his backdraft—but his voice is what sends a chill down her spine.

"Do _not_ walk away from me when I am talking to you, Saya."

She winces, but meets his look evenly. "You weren't _talking_ to me, Solomon—you were meting out another sermon, as usual. It's all you ever do."

"And whose fault is that? Am _I_ to blame if you have no concern for your pregnancy? Is it my fault that you turn vindictive and insolent everytime I guide you on the correct path, because you're so desperate to control everything?"

" _Control everything_? _Me_? You're the one won't even let me take a walk without accusing me of sneaking off! _You're_ the one who tails me wherever I go, because you can't let me have even a little breathing space!"

Solomon regards her coldly, as if she's very rash and foolish and only to be tolerated upto a point. "Be quiet and go to bed now, Saya. You've obviously stretched your nerves too far."

Her nerves _are_ stretched too far—but from being treated like a mindless doll that speaks only when her string is pulled, then locked away when she bears no further use.

"I'll go to bed when I _feel_ like it, Solomon. I don't need you to order me every second. Right now, I just want to walk by myself."

"You always grow this quarrelsome by nightfall. Is it a symptom of your condition, or is there somewhere else you secretly need to be? Some clandestine meeting you don't want to tell me about, or—"

Her hands ball into fists. "Why do you keep _saying_ that to me? You claim you _love me_ , but you're constantly accusing me of being unfaithful, calling me a liar! Everything about me you _should_ love, you keep trying to squash! You always treat me like I'm insane, or stupid, or like I don't have any feelings of my own!"

" _Don't have any_ —?" Breaking off, Solomon takes a breath. His eyes glint like ice. "Saya, do _not_ make me out to be the villain in every argument. I'm only looking out for your safety. I simply want some peace and quiet and our home, and for you to be happy. That is all."

" _No_! What you want is for me to _shut up and do everything you say_!" Tears fill her eyes, but she can't stop them. It's more than the constant mood-swings of her pregnancy. These are the real issues at hand, a powder-keg of resentments, ignited by trivial things like knitting and staying up late, which no amount of cajolery or lovemaking can untangle.

Solomon blinks, taken aback her tears. "Saya—angel, wait. I'm sorry. You know I didn't mean—"

She shies from his touch. "No—just stay away from me! Even when you say you're sorry, you're _never_ really sorry at all! You always act like it's _my_ fault, like _I'm_ the one who needs to be forgiven!"

"Saya, that isn't what I meant. Please, I'm just a stupid clueless man, and you bewilder me so much sometimes. I have no idea how to behave or what to think around you. I've tried to be forceful, to keep you from drifting away—but the last thing I want is to make you unhappy. Please, please just forgive me."

The way he's looking at her is so abject, so _lost_. She can tell he means every word—but that just makes it worse. His love is like a double-edged sword that cuts both ways.

He gently draws her in, arm encircling her shoulders. "Please, Saya—I don't want to drive us apart this way. I don't want to lose you. Please don't be angry with me anymore."

"Solomon—I-I don't want to talk about this right now." She tries to push him off, but her whole body feels weak, churning for his like a junkie for a sweet solacing narcotic.

"What's the matter? You don't feel well? Should I take you out for some air?"

"N-no…" She no longer knows what she's going to say.

"Saya, whatever you're upset with me for, I'll make it right. I swear. Just let me take care of you. Everything will be fine."

She means to break from his hold. But those four useless words, _everything will be fine,_ snag her like tentacles. Wants so badly to disbelieve them, to pull away—except she's already succumbing to the openmouthed fever of his kiss.

He gently scoops her up in his arms. Carries her, not to the bedroom, but to the wide armchair by the door. Kneeling at her feet, he coaxes her legs apart with a hand on each knee. Leaning up to kiss her, slow and thorough and pensive, until she shudders and sinks into his hold, all resistance fizzling out. He always pours himself so completely into her approval, until she's helpless against the desire to take what he gives. Awed by its intensity, even as she's ashamed of herself for succumbing.

He's changed his whole life for her, inside-out. Traversed decades and agonies, just to win her acceptance. But even that love isn't enough to make things right between them, make broken things whole.

_There's no use for any of this. No use, no use…_

"Saya. Please don't go." Solomon kisses her closed eyelids, one, then the other. Not an entreaty for her physical presence, but the emotional.

She hesitates, then opens her eyes. Lets her gaze meet his. Fingers threading into his hair as he gnaws a delicate line down her throat, unbuttoning her blouse with deft fingers. The softness of his touch dissolves her to quicksilver; she whimpers as he tongues liquid stars across her uncovered breasts, teasing her in a way that feels first elusive, then greedy. Her whole body goes hot and pliant, flooded in shame yet resisting nothing as he torments her gently, playing with her oversensitized nipples, punishing them with teeth and tongue, lapping and suckling and working her with his usual tender abandon, until she is letting soft shivering sighs pass from her lips.

In despair—yet begging for more.

Leisurely, he tongues a wet figure-eight down her belly, melting to kneel at her feet. Gathers her skirt up into her lap, tugging the panties down, leaving the scrap of lace to dangle from one ankle as he leans in between her legs. Saya tenses. But it is impossible to tell if it is in reluctance or anticipation.

"W-wait. Someone might come—"

His lips quirk, but he doesn't mock the poor choice of words. "No one will come in unless I call."

His warm hands ghost along her bare legs, parting them, fingertips tracing along the insides of her thighs. She quivers, a terrible drugging weakness seeping through her muscles. Unresistant as he throws one leg over the chair arm, lifting the other thigh to his shoulder. Gently, he wraps her right hand around the back of his head, spanning her fingers into the thick curls. Meets her eyes across the round slope of her body, a bright green flash in the gloom.

"Let me make things right, angel. Let me make you feel good."

When his mouth touches her, she gasps and shudders, fingers knotting in his hair. He teases her softly, wet hot flicks of tongue that make her jerk her hips. It is exquisitely gentle, yet the very gentleness deliquesces her. Mewing, she stares hazily at the top of his head, bright and fluorescent in the dimness. Each time he hums against her, it is a hot rumbling purr of encouragement, his deep liquid kisses making her throb. She hears herself panting, the long muscles of her thighs twitching, her hips churning under his mouth, over and over. Half-wanting to shrivel up and expire for allowing the pleasure to crest so swiftly, for yielding to him despite his cruelties, his condescension.

Except she can't stop herself anymore.

It is barely moments before the climax overcomes her. Her hands fist his hair. She surges up against his mouth, sobbing, frantic, her head tossing to and fro as colored shapes pinwheel in sick delirium behind her closed eyes.

 _No use_. Her mind melts into hot tears, even as the sweet wave judders through her. _No use. It's no use_.

Solomon straightens to kiss her, slipping his tongue between her parted lips. Still kneeling—but hot with impatience now, mounting her, without removing his clothes, only unfastening his trousers and dragging her closer by the hips. Hard and ready for her, filling the hopeless empty ache inside her— _too much_ , yet not enough, not _nearly_ enough.

The pain and pleasure blur together like dark ink in water. She whimpers, her eyes fluttering open, lashes webbed in tears.

"Angel." The endearment comes out in a heat-hazed sigh. Solomon's green gaze has coalesced into one glowing red point. "Don't shut me out. Please. Stay with me."

"I—" She can't find words for the tumult of her nerves. Aware of nothing but the wet congested heat between her thighs, of the energy vibrating beneath the extraneous fabric of hers and Solomon's disordered clothes, beneath his hard taut muscles. Yet even as he leans in, gorging her with worshipful kisses as his hands possess and cherish, her throat is a knot of misery and she has never felt more alone.

_No use. No use._

Over and over, he drives into her. Tight goading jabs that leave her breathless and overheated, head tossing back on plaintive mews. Undulant side-to-sides that make her clench and half-swoon, her hips rocking in lewd circles around his pace. Shameful, yet she had no control of her bodyy. Her mouth is open and the low inarticulate cries are ripped out of her as if in lamentation.

"Ssh. Saya," he breathes. "Ssh."

His mouth covers hers, swallowing her sounds into himself as he rides her harder and harder. And _oh_ , it is building again, the tension so cruelly tantalizing her—rising and teasing and receding, never letting her peak. His movements are going faster, wilder. Unable to stop herself, she encompasses him in the tight sweep of her arms and legs. Nails skidding down the wrinkled folds of his shirt. Digging red streaks into the exposed skin of his chest. Her toes curl. Whole body caught in a powerful wave of trembling as her eyes squeeze shut.

"Please—please— _ohgod_ _please_ —"

What is she pleading for? Impossible to tell.

His hand on her face then. "Look at me. Saya—look at me."

So many times he's demanded it of her. Yet each time, she can't bear to match his gaze. Can't bear to face the blurred reflection of herself in his eyes, to acknowledge how unequal she is to his devotion, how untrue to him, to herself.

_To Haji._

Her skin goes cold, then hot. A split-second later, the climax catches her. Her hands jerk up by instinct to cover her face. She hears herself crying out, hips surging, plaintive tremulous wails. It goes on, terrible crashing aftershocks, intense, fragmented, almost unbearable. And against her, the harsh thrum of Solomon's groan.

He finishes on a powerful jerk, his entire musculature taut and vibrating before he collapses upon her. The dying spasms of his body reignite her peak, so she is shuddering helplessly beneath his heavy weight, her broken gasps becoming choked, bitter sobs as she swoops up again into glittering black space before the long plunge down, like a pull of gravity.

Boneless, mindless, she slumps against Solomon, gulping in huge lungfuls of air.

_No use. It's no use._

Except she can no longer tell if it means _No use being with him,_ or _No use fighting it._

"Oh God." Panting, Solomon buries his face in her tangled hair. She feels the deep thub of his heart. "Saya, Saya…"

They subside in a cramped tangle of limbs, still entwined. The room is the same as ever, cold and immaculate and precise as a glass chessboard; their gasps are the only signs of human life. Saya's face is awash with tears. Her body feels sore and tender, throbbing inside and out.

"Solomon..." she begins, unsure what she wants to say.

But he catches her head and kisses her for a long time, greedy and grateful, his tongue rolling gently into her mouth. Always, he does this. As if he is trying to recapture the heat the raged so dreadfully and wonderfully between them, barely minutes before. To imprint everything in his memory, before the inevitable complication and ruination of speech.

Sighing, she kisses him back. Unable to decide whether it is in affection or defeat—or if the difference even matters.

Nothing is simple where Solomon is concerned.

Sated and soft-eyed, he smooths her hair. "Are you all right?"

"I—y-yes." Her voice is wobbly, cheeks blotched with blushes. She tries to shake her skirts down. Shame creeps in once again, a choking revulsion at her weakness, her inability to resist him. Sadness too, at how their lovemaking smooths out all the ugly wrinkles and sharp edges between them with such magical flourish, so she can almost believe, each time, that everything will be all right.

In moments like these, everything _is_ all right. That's the agony of it.

Her legs are beginning to cramp. Wincing, she nudges Solomon off. "I-I need to wash up."

Slowly, he loosens his embrace, still kneeling at her feet. Straightens his wrinkled suit, before helping set her dress to rights, with an attentive patience that she is always touched by, the same way she is touched by the careful way he sometimes brushes her hair in the evenings, standing behind her at the dressing table, heavy silky locks spilling over his fingers; or the way he drifts with easygoing grace through the kitchen at midnight, opening cabinets, laying out ingredients, to fix her a late-night snack, the mere fact that he's mastered these human comforts—for her benefit—always sending a fission of delight through her.

He is so ready to share every aspect of her life.

Or, failing that, to control it.

"You can't be so naïve as to imagine the staff here isn't used to matters of this nature," Solomon says now, buttoning up her blouse. "This room could tell some interesting tales."

Her gaze dips, jealously a dull barb in her chest. "About you and... other people?"

"I never said that." His eyes have mischief in them. Yet it is the intimacy of his smile, the cozy confidentiality of it, that draws a faint, fluttering smile from her in turn. Soft, soft, as if one misstep might break the fragile truce between them.

Her bloodstone dangles between them, an askew caveat. Solomon tweaks it playfully as he straightens it.

Saya jerks. "W-wait—don't—"

He drops the chain with a soft smile. "Don't worry—I won't break it."

"It's not that. I just—" She can't explain why it feels wrong to let him touch her bloodstone.

She moves to unclasp it, but Solomon catches her hand. "Leave it on. I like how it looks." He touches the pendant curiously. "I don't think I gave you this. Was it one of your Okinawa belongings?"

"N-no, I—"

He twines the chain between his fingers. "It's pretty. I haven't seen something like it in a while. It looks rather like a Gypsy charm or—"

At her expression, he stops. A slow understanding creeps in his gaze, and Saya's scalp prickles.

"Saya?" His face is deceptively neutral. "Who gave you this necklace?"

"N-no one. I just—"

"Who gave this to you? Was it Haji?"

"I—" Her heart judders, electric. Solomon reads the truth like an aroma off her flesh.

At once, he snaps to his feet. "It _was_ Haji, wasn't it?"

"N-no. It wasn't like that—I—"

"When exactly did he give this to you? How long have you been wearing it?"

"S-Solomon, it's just a necklace! There's no reason to make such a fuss about—"

"Make a _fuss_? You should see the look on your face. The second I touched that thing, you looked like I'd caught you receiving a lover from your window."

"Solomon, no! Please, why are you being so unreasonable? I haven't—"

" _I'm_ being unreasonable? You go into hysterics if I so much as ask who gave you the necklace—don't you think I have a _right_ to wonder why you're wearing it?"

His voice, brittle as frost, chokes her with its insidious potential.

_God—not again not again._

Every time she lets her guard down with him, feels like things might just work out between them, everything plummets without shift or warning into _this_.

"Solomon, I'm _not_ going into hysterics! You just get so _angry_ _and defensive_ _there's no other way for me to_ —" Eyes squeezed shut, she sucks a breath, fighting not to start screaming, or crying, or both. "For God's sake, it's just a _gift_. Haji gave it to me before our wedding!"

"And where is your wedding ring, while you wear _that_ with such impunity?"

"M-my ring?" His chilling gaze makes her aware of her bare ring-finger. "Oh god. _No_ , I just took it off while I was knitting! That's all! Please—you have no reason to—"

He shakes his head with disgust. "You think you can lie to me through your teeth, and I'll keep falling for it like a fool? You think you can keep betraying me over and over, and I'll tolerate it and look the other way—"

Straightening her clothes, she jerks upright. "For God's sake— _why do you keep talking about me this way_? Just because _Diva_ wasn't loyal to you, doesn't give you any right to—"

The moment her sister's name leaves her lips, she wishes she hadn't spoken.

Solomon gaze chills to deep polar ice.

"This. Is not. About. Diva."

" _Yes it is_! The more I think about it, the more sense it makes! Solomon, my sister may have had reasons for being the way she was—but you have no call to keep pitching all her mistakes on me! We are not the same person! We're not—"

Solomon cuts her off with a single upraised hand _._

"Give me that necklace," he orders, deathly quiet.

"Wh-what?"

"That necklace. Haji's talisman. Give it to me."

Instinctively, Saya grips her bloodstone. "No!"

"Saya— _give me that necklace_."

" _No_!"

"Saya—" He stalks toward her with violence in his narrowed eyes.

She scrambles back, but she is now barricaded between the shelf and the wall. Her pulse zings; the second Solomon grabs her arm, her dormant reflexes spring into action.

" _No_ — _get away from me_!"

She's unaware of hitting out until her fist connects with hard bone and flesh. She feels the crunch of cartilage, the spurt of blood—Solomon's head snaps back like his neck is made of rubber. Aghast, Saya claps a hand over her mouth. Blood drips from Solomon's lip, speckling his pristine collar.

Solomon touches the wound with light fingertips, as if examining some alien substance. His expression is unreadable. His eyes, when they meet hers, are flat and empty.

Then he hits her.

Saya sees the fireworks even before the back of his palm strikes her face. The brutal blow slams her into the adjacent chair. A sharp _crack_ splinters it in half, wooden shards flying as she hits the floor in a heap.

For a moment she can only lie there, stunned. Blood dribbles hot and salty from her mouth, where teeth have cut lip.

_God._

Never in a million years would Solomon's appearance ever suggest that he'd be capable of—

_No._

_He's still a Chiropteran, no matter what front he puts up._

_Violence comes naturally for him. It's instinct._

Besides. Solomon isn't the only one here whose appearance is deceptive.

As if called out of a spell, Solomon blanches, at her side in an instant. "Saya—Christ, I'm so sorry! Are you all right? I didn't mean to—"

He breaks off when Saya lifts her bleeding face. Her eyes blaze red.

Without warning, she sweeps around like a scythe, trying to knock him off-balance. Solomon evades in one lightning movement. "Saya, what're you—"

No time to finish. Leaping up with a snarl, she lunges at him. One ferocious blow, then another, both evaded by Solomon's eyeblink movements. Her flesh zings as though engulfed in locusts. Too angry to think clearly, to hear anything, _see anything_.

All these days of repressed rage have left no other siphon. Haji's absence, Solomon's coercion, her own frustrations, have gnawed a crater that seems to drain in everything—love, hate, anger, sadness, trust.

This is the only way to feel anything now.

Her muscles aren't as adept at combat as before—but wrath gives her fuel. Seizing a leg from the shattered chair, she hefts it like a sword and lunges for him. Once, twice, her jabs miss; Solomon streaks out of her way, but makes no countering move. Lampshades go toppling, wallpaper is slashed and furniture battered—but no blood splatters the floor. It's like trying to clutch at empty air. He seems to dissolve almost mid-slice.

Saya wonders if he's ever been in a similar situation before—secretly preparing for this moment all along. He seems to second-guess her every blow like a chess match. Keeps her at it, swerving and ducking, until he's tired her out completely—before making his move.

When Saya strikes again, he seizes her sword-arm. His grip is crushing. Red lights pop before her eyes, lips parting in a scream.

Wrenching her arm behind her, Solomon slams her back against the wall, pinning her there. The chair-leg is ripped from her grasp. She expects him to hurl it aside, but instead he presses it into her free hand.

One sharp squeeze of his fist, and jagged wood slices her palm. Her blood streams down the wood, painting it red.

Matter-of-fact, Solomon presses the pointed end to his chest. His expression is unnervingly calm.

"Do it now."

His words freeze Saya in place. "Wh-what?"

"Go ahead. Stab me. It is what you want, right?"

"What I—?"

"Stab me, Saya. Just run me through. Until you go into labor, your blood is still poisonous to me. It will kill me in just a few minutes. I won't stop you."

Solomon's words are not mocking or derisive. His fingers are wrapped around hers, holding the spike between them, right over his heart. Saya sees a dark splotch already spreading on his shirt, where wood has pierced skin. All it'd take is one hard thrust, and she could run him through.

Impale him, crystallize him.

End this forever.

"What are you waiting for, Saya? _Do it._ I almost died for you once; it's only fair that I die by your hand now. And you seem so desperate to be free of me, after all. Go on. Do it. We both know I should've died a very long time ago."

Saya's throat is dry. "S-Solomon…"

"What? Why are you hesitating? You have my full permission. There should not be anything stopping you."

"No—this isn't—"

"This isn't what? Not what you want? I think it is. I think it's what we both want. Just go ahead and—"

" _Shut up_! _This is not what I want_!"

Solomon doesn't even flinch. His gaze is frigid as the air between them.

They stand that way for a moment, bodies pressed close, face-to-face, as if after a tango. In other circumstances it might have been a romantic clasp; two lovers on the cusp of a kiss. Saya can feel the width of Solomon's chest against hers, the length of his legs against hers, as if he's lying on top of her.

But the wooden sword is poised like a spire between them.

The room ripples; tears burn her eyes. The expression on Solomon's face is devastating. It reminds her of what her own face used to look like, back in the war.

Neither sadness nor joy, just this empty expectation for death.

"Solomon," she says. "Please. Stop this…"

"I was… hoping _you_ would." His words are dull, unlike anything she's heard before. His _real_ voice, pared down of all pretense and poise, literally screaming in its wretchedness.

 _He really is just like I was,_ Saya realizes numbly.

_No. He's… even worse than I was. He's what I would've become, if I'd ever crossed over to Diva's side._

_Aimless and... just always empty._

"Solomon," she whispers. "I don't—want to kill you."

"I wish I could believe you." Eyes closed, he averts his face. "Because the more I look at you, the more I think it might be best."

"Solomon..."

The sword between them rattles. Saya can't tell if her hand is shaking, or his. Abruptly, the weapon slips from their fingers, clattering on the floor. In the sharp ensuing echo, Solomon's body slides with it, as if chopped off at the legs.

Sinking to his knees, he presses his forehead to her distended belly. At once the babies kick in lively counterpoint, where his brow rests on her stomach. Clamoring to get out, to greet their father, embrace this precarious world.

So unlike their two parents, who are so desperate to _leave_ it.

"I know…we haven't been on good terms since Milan," Solomon says. "But God forgive me, Saya—the last thing I want is to earn your hatred. Please, I'm trying the best I can, _I really am_. But nothing I do ever seems to make you happy. I just can't _understand_ you. What makes you so angry with me all the time; what makes you despise me so much?"

"I don't—"

"Don't what? Don't hate me?" His voice cracks. When he lifts his head, his face is ashen, tear-streaked.

Saya flinches. She's never seen him lose control so utterly before. Kneeling before her this way, strands of hair sticking to a pale brow, he reminds her of a little boy.

It hits her then—this is what he is. Just a boy.

A casualty of a war, an orphan of a loveless immortal family.

Blindly looking for his place at every moment, yet oblivious to the consequences of his own actions. Not out of malice, but because he's incapable of grasping the very _concept_ of right and wrong. He doesn't mean to hurt those around him—but, like a toddler plucking wings off butterflies, he simply lacks the capacity to understand how _not_ to.

Boiling tears fall down Saya cheeks.

_He really is what I was, back in the war._

_Full of so many cracks, and just... better at hiding them._

But Haji wasn't like that.

Her Chevalier was no child. Not _as_ a child, and never afterward. Neither suffering, nor mutilation, had detracted him from his responsibilities. In the war, he'd protected her at every moment—not because he was desperately seeking acknowledgement the way Solomon is, but because making amends at her side, for Diva's proclivities, was the right thing to do.

_"This battle is not yours alone; it is also mine. Not out of obligation, but because I choose to be here. I choose to fight by your side."_

Something inside her tears open, brilliant as a sunrise.

_I've…made a mistake._

_I was supposed to stay with_ Haji _._

_Not running from my past like some frightened child, but facing it head-on. Happiness had nothing to do with it. The responsibility was still mine to shoulder—just like in the war._

_But I didn't understand that. And now... both Solomon and I are so unhappy. And I'm just as much to blame for it as he is._

_Maybe… more so._

The babies jostle inside her, as if to reassert everything that ties her and Solomon together.

She feels sorry for her daughters now. They deserve better than to be born into a home where the foundation is dropping away, brick by brick, into fathomless space. No light or leeway, no future in sight.

Sliding down, she faces Solomon with bloodshot eyes. "Solomon… I-I'm sorry. I think we've made a terrible mistake."

"Mistake?" Solomon's eyes are dark. "W-what are you talking about, Saya? If it's because I treated you roughly just now, you _know_ how sorry I am! It was an accident—I swear I'll never do it again. I just—"

"Solomon, it's not about that! I just—I can't see us going any further together; I can't see any point to—"

"Any _point_? Saya, I know we've both been arguing these few weeks but—please, none of that changes the way I feel about you. I love you—there isn't a single _moment_ when I don't! You can't give up on me just because—"

"I'm not giving up on you, Solomon. I'm just trying to do the right thing! And I-I don't think we're right for each other at all. There's no way we can—"

"Saya, stop _saying_ that. Of course you're right for me—I can't remember a time in my life when I was happier than with you! You've given me everything I could have wanted! How can you say—"

"Because I can _see_ it!" Tears fill her eyes, but Solomon's face remains glass-lucid. "Each day I spend with you, I keep sinking a little lower; I keep hating myself more! We can't agree on anything—nothing about me suits or satisfies you! Never for very long! You don't trust me or even take me seriously! You can't understand anything about me. Please, I just can't go on like this, Solomon; there'll be nothing of me _left_ if I do!"

Solomon takes her face in both hands. "Saya—why do you keep talking about me this way? I am not your enemy. The last thing I want is to make you unhappy—I just want to understand—"

"You _can't_ understand! That's what the problem is! You aren't helping me; you just want to change me, make me into what _you_ want. You don't really see me—you still don't know anything about me!"

"I can _learn_ to! Angel, please. Don't treat me this way! I only—"

"No, Solomon. I've already decided. I just can't go on like this." She tries to rise to her feet, but he seizes her arm. The wavering grief on his face hardens to steely desperation.

"Do _not_ walk away from me. We are going to talk about this! I will not let you just get up and leave!"

"Solomon, no. I'm tired now, just let me go!"

He yanks her closer, fingers digging into her arm. "You're staying _right here_."

The expression on his face shoots a current of fear through her. His hand is embedded into her flesh as if trying to fuse to her bones. "Solomon, let me go! I don't want to do this right now!"

"You're not walking away from me, Saya. You are mine, whether you like it or not, and I will not let you ruin everything between us."

"Solomon— _let go before I_ —"

Heedless, he yanks her closer—Saya doesn't know whether he means to embrace her or strike her, but she wants neither contact from him.

One sharp blow dislodges Solomon's grasp. She tears herself out of his reach, to a safe corner of the room. Her arms are a constellation of aches where he's gripped them. She can almost feel the flesh purpling to echo his fingerprints.

Solomon rubs the edge of his mouth, where her jab landed. The skin turns from sickly yellow to violet, like an aurora borealis.

His eyes are dark with misgiving and shock. "S-Saya, I—"

Shuddering, she says, "This is what I meant—when I said you don't understand me at all. You can't even seem to _hear_ me, no matter what I say. Or how loud."

Solomon winces, shaking his head. "Saya, please don't do this to me. Why are you being so vindictive? I love you—you _know_ how much. Things were so good between us—I don't understand what happened. I don't know what makes you so—so inaccessible all the time. So removed from every part of our life."

Saya shuts her eyes. Entire body subsuming as if into a single scalding tear. She knows that if she opens her mouth, it'll only be to sob.

She'd married him, thinking that she'd have a clean slate, a fresh start on her life. Like a fairytale ending, a happily-ever-after. But this impracticality only redoubles her grief—she was just building castles in the air, romanticizing a future that could never really be.

There would only be this, all throughout her life. Fighting and coercion and misunderstandings and blows.

"I'm sorry," she breathes. "This was all a mistake. I... should never have done this. Never have let you take me to bed that night—never agreed to be your wife. I'm just no good for you. But I never meant to hurt you, Solomon. I just don't know what I was thinking."

"What you were _thinking_ —?" Abruptly, Solomon is right before her, seizing her shoulders. "What are you trying to say, Saya? That when you let yourself agree to be my wife—you had no feelings for me, whatsoever? That after the war, I was merely the most feasible port in a storm?"

"Solomon, I—"

His grip tightens, merciless as his gaze. "So what then? All you wanted was a little vacation? You simply needed a brief distraction from your past—and I was just readily convenient to provide it. And now that your needs are met, it's perfectly all right to cut me loose? Is that all? Because the more I look at your eyes, the more I think it is true."

"Please! It's not like that! I—"

"Then how else is it? You know, I've never once heard you tell me you love me. Forget _love_ —I've never heard you express any _liking_ for me at all. Oh, you utter all sorts of blandishments when we're in bed. Just in the heat of the moment. But never anything beyond that. Tell me something, Saya: do you care about me, a shred, at all? Or was this merely some business arrangement you resigned yourself to—imagining you'd condescend to give me what I want, as long as I keep giving you whatever _you_ want?"

Saya can't answer.

Everything Solomon says is true. So easy to concede that these were her reasons for choosing him. That she'd sought him out to appease her own insecurities, and is jettisoning him now that the luster has faded.

Except her feelings for him are beyond any such classification. Easy to call them an addiction; destructive and demoralizing—except nothing is so simple where Solomon is concerned.

She loves Haji, yes. With the inherence of air in her lungs, blood in her veins; beyond comprehension or control. Haji's a _part_ of her.

But after everything that's transpired between her and Solomon, a slipstream of caresses and confessions, bites and blows—it has all infused into the surface of her skin, meshing in like a cicatrix, a scar.

One she can't erase any more than she can flay her own flesh off.

"I do love you, Solomon," she says. "I-I don't know when it happened, or how... but I do. You've worked your way in, somehow, and I can't seem to scrub you off, even if I boil myself alive." Her eyes meet his, red with wrath. "But if you touch me again, I _will_ kill you."

"What?"

She jerks from his grasp. "Don't come into my bed again. There's no point in our making love all night when we can't stand each other when morning comes. And half the time I can't even tell if you're with me because you really _want_ me—or if it's just another way of controlling me."

"Saya—"

"Solomon. Just. Shut up. I don't want to know. Listen to what _I'm_ telling _you_. We may be married, but you don't own me, not in any sense. I will not have you touching me again, or—trying to force yourself on me, unless I allow it. Right now, I just want you to leave me alone."

"Saya—"

"We're done here, Solomon. I'm going to bed now. Please don't bother me."

She tries to move past him, but he grabs her arm. "It's _Haji_ , isn't it? Ever since Milan, nothing about you has been the same. You've been thinking of nothing except _him_."

Livid, she jerks from his hold. "Haji and I never did anything wrong in Milan, but I'm sick trying to convince you it's the truth. I already know you won't hear a word I say. But if you must know, it _is_ because of Haji that I don't want you to touch me. Because each time you do, I know you still can't see me at all. _He_ could, and it sickens me that I just let him go."

"Let him go?" Solomon's voice is icy with disgust. "As if Haji were valuable enough to lose in the first place? Just what is it about him that you love so much—when it is _my_ daughters you are carrying, _my_ roof you are living under? What has that wretch given you that I cannot?"

"He gave me something you'll never be able to. _Myself_."

Solomon recoils, paling to the white of old bones.

But Saya has already staggered past him, straight as she can.

With each step, she already feels that familiar itch burgeoning—wanting to swerve back for Solomon, concede for the sweet solace of his mouth and skin on hers again.

Instead, she clutches her bloodstone, telling herself not to falter.

In the bathroom, she locks the door, sagging against the sink. Exhaustion steeps her whole body; the face she sees in the in the mirror is disheveled, hollow-eyed.

But what she said to Solomon _had_ to be done. If they proceeded in that vein any further, either she'd have taken her life, or _he_ would. Or both.

Tears pour in a liquid detoxification down Saya's face, body shaking with sobs.

And she knows that, in the other room, Solomon is crying too.

Their relationship always reminded her of a necklace, shimmering rubies strung together on a delicate clasp. Except now, that chain has snapped apart, all the beads scattering into chaos.

A chaos that no one can be held responsible for. But which is too far beyond salvaging in anything except the memory.


	24. Jittery

Outlined in pale moonlight, Saya steps into the sunken marble tub.

Water lapping at one foot, then the other. Rising to slosh at her thighs, her belly. The underwater lights cast an ethereal blue glow across her bare skin.

From Solomon's vantage at the window, she resembles a mermaid.

A siren stepping into an enchanted portal. Exiting this mortal plane without a care—nothing to do, to undo—departing without casting as much as ripple behind.

That's exactly what Solomon fears she will do.

_Leave._

Drink of blood in hand, he watches her settle into the tub, immersed to the chin. Breasts and belly swollen, heavy on her frame. As the childbirth approaches, she's assumed an awkward shuffle.

But in stillness, she still bears a peculiar poise, an almost feline elegance.

Solomon remembers, with a pang, how the warm weight of her used to feel, crouched over him in the dark. Belly hard and heavy against his, hair spilling in a rich deluge around his face. Picturing the babies, rocking within her in their watery cradle. The image infusing him in a strange thrill.

Knowing that, right then, he held against him something that was entirely _his._ Inside and out.

Or so he thought.

He watches Saya tip her head back with a sigh. Hair and skin glistening, beads of water sparkling on her collarbones.

In the moonlight, she looks radiant. Hypnotically beautiful.

Solomon swallows, unable to tear his eyes away. He imagines stealing behind Saya the way he used to. Kneeling to coil her hair in a satin mass in his fingers, gently twisting it to bring her mouth to his.

But he shakes it off.

He _can't_ let her know he is standing by the drapes. _Can't_ let her know he is watching her—that he has been doing so for the past few nights now. The courtesy ingrained into his nature warns that there is something sordid about this.

Saya has no idea she is being secretly observed.

Each night, she retreats to the enclosed terrace sauna, thinking herself alone for a few sweet moments. He watches her relax, _truly_ relax, for the first time in hours. Eyes softening as though imbued in a dream, clothes fluttering like leaves to the floor. A pristine revelation of psyche as much as a tantalizing strip-tease.

Sinking naked into the tub while Solomon watches on, seething in the agony only distance can evoke.

He wonders if he wants Saya to catch him doing this. Perhaps this is a subconscious way to seek her attention. Perhaps he wants her to know, how he is so _inflamed_ by her that he _must_ maintain some link between them. Even one as warped as this.

Otherwise, his entire world will crash into blackness.

A choking tightness grips Solomon's throat. The sensation is so unfamiliar it takes a moment to realize what it is.

 _Fear_.

Cold, paralyzing fear, unlike any he has felt since the Great War.

That same sense of never having his grasp on anything, tension gnawing him with every breath. Death itself, breathing like a prowling monster down his neck.

Except in this case, there _is_ no Death.

Merely the darker dilemma of _life_.

He can't get Saya's words out of his head. Her expression, her voice. Admitting—for the first time ever—that she _did love him_ , that she couldn't help it. And then telling him, blunt and brutal, not to touch her again. Not in bed or outside it, as if he's a filthy toxin she can't contaminate herself with.

She's married to _him_ , bearing _his_ children. Yet it seems she was untrue long before she ever took her vows.

Still affixed to _Haji_.

The idea makes him sick.

Since _That Night_ of their brawl, everything has plunged downhill. Their silences are worse than ever, viscid as quagmires. Saya spends half her time in fitful sleep, the other half shut in her room, staring for hours at the ceiling with her hands on her belly, disinterested in all else. In daylight, she walks past him like a specter. Whenever he talks to her, she answers as little as possible, and constantly gives the impression that she doesn't want to be near him.

She has lost that delicate lilting laugh that once delighted him so. She barely smiles anymore.

Even when they are in the same room, Solomon can feel her slipping away.

He has decided, after unsuccessfully bringing up the topic with Saya, that they should stop traveling at this point; settle down until the babies arrive. He trots out a list of places: Switzerland, Denmark, Norway. Peaceful neighborhoods, secure atmosphere, exclusive schools.

Saya will enjoy herself there, he assures her. She will like settling in and managing the household decorations, the servants. It will be a refresher from this turmoil of travel.

And after the babies are born, she will have plenty to keep herself contented with.

The feud between them will soon be forgotten.

Except when he proposes this, Saya just offers him a sullen suspicious glare, identical to when he brought her to his New York apartment to offer her a second chance at happiness.

As if she can't bring herself to believe a word he says.

As if he secretly means to roast her alive, like a lamb over a flame.

They have resolved (rather, _he_ has resolved) to select Prague as the best option. They shift to a high-rise in the Podoli area, overlooking the glittering stretch of the Vltava River. The condo is an interconnected maze of Chinese onyx and white marble, sunken conversation pits and sweeping floor-to-ceiling windows, with a vast roofgarden fitted with a spa bath and bar.

Spacious, sleek, up-to-date in every sense. The kind of lodgings any woman would be thrilled to have at her disposal.

But all Saya says when she enters the flat is how _cold_ it is. When Solomon asks what she means, she does not elaborate.

Just to please her, he orders a shipment of designer furniture to give the place a more homelike touch. Ceramic lamps and hand-lacquered porcelain vases, white damask drapes and intricate wool carpets. Silverware and china worthy of an embassy; chesterfields of decorations, walnut-paneled furniture, and even those wrought-iron candleholders he knows Saya likes so much.

But when everything arrives, Saya doesn't even seem to notice. Solomon has no choice but to solicit a professional designer to handle the decorations; his wife doesn't give it a second glance.

In the daylight, she takes refuge in the flat's behemoth library, reading all the collections Solomon has stored there. Marcel Proust and John Donne. Machiavelli and Sun Tzu. Auden and Wolfgang von Goethe. He supposes he should be glad she is staying indoors, instead of wandering around town doing God-knows-what.

But even here, Saya keeps him at an arm's length.

He tries to share this aspect of interest with her, sit with her and ask her to read to him. Not out of genuine interest, but simply because he misses the sound of her voice. But Saya doesn't like to be disturbed when she is reading. She says his _incessant hovering_ interferes with her concentration.

In the evenings, he tries to coax her to dress up and go downtown with him, explore the city. But all she does is glue herself to her infernal knitting, like it sustains her very life. She has already made enough booties for an entire battalion of toddlers.

Solomon can't help but notice, with a chill, that she even embroiders the same bibs and quilts that Diva preferred in her own pregnancy. He supposes that these tastes are hereditary, like allergies or bad habits. Saya and Diva were _twins_ , after all.

He doesn't like to think that Saya is resorting to Diva's routines because she feels just as trapped as Diva did.

By nightfall, she phones Kai under Solomon's supervision, then walks around the terrace to shake the cramps from her legs. But each time Solomon tries to stroll beside her, put an arm around her, she always mutters something about being tired and flees to her room. The only time they spend together is at dinner; Saya because she is always hungry, and Solomon for the simple sake of being near her.

They sit on opposite ends of a sweeping table, divided by a crevasse of glassware and a centerpiece of red roses. Meals pass in near-silence; Solomon is forced to do all the talking, while Saya picks listlessly at her food, answering in monosyllables without once meeting his eyes.

And when she retires to bed, she always locks her door.

Which is, perhaps, what stings the most. No matter what their differences, she never denied him the simple animal comfort of lying beside her at night.

But it wasn't just her body Solomon craved. It wasn't just the sex. It was the sense of peace that enveloped him afterward. The sensation of time coming to a standstill, the dreary night hours pooling away, until his insomnia, his anxieties, his very _thoughts_ , faded to blissful oblivion.

But it seems he will never be granted that reprieve again.

At times, he resolves to punish Saya by feigning disinterest. Ignores her for weeks, spending long hours in town to see if it gets a rise out of her. But he gives up when he realizes that Saya doesn't even seem to _notice_ if he speaks to her or not, be it an hour or a fortnight.

He tries to goad her in personal matters. If she ever gives instructions to the servants, he countermands them. If she ever asks for furniture to be placed somewhere else, he requests the opposite. Same with the food in the kitchen, with the topiaries in the garden, the wine in the cabinet. If she says black, it has therefore to be white.

He hopes to drive her to confront him at some point. But Saya seems to intuit his game.

All she does is give him a cool look and say, " _You are the master of the house. You must do as you wish_."

Her undertone of condescension is like a slap to the face.

He tries to aggravate her in insidious ways. He finds out that she has been spending time with the chef, a young man who worked once in Okinawa, and cooks all those bland Japanese foods Saya likes so much. In a fit of jealousy, Solomon has the chef dismissed. He hopes Saya will rebuke him about it. But to his surprise, she says nothing.

Instead, two weeks later, Solomon gets a call from Kai, thanking him for the new chef he let Saya send over, to help in Omoro's kitchen.

He tries to provoke Saya by preying on her unsociable behavior. Every time she refuses to go out, he throws a party, inviting over all his colleagues and their wives for her to entertain. He hopes that Saya will lose her patience at some point, demand he put a stop to it.

But to his alarm, she goes the other extreme.

When the guests arrive, she greets them in a voluminous maternity dress and draggled hair, far more mortifying than if she refused to see them at all. During the party, she sits munching _hors de oeuvres_ with a placid, expectant-mother's expression, chattering about the upcoming childbirth to anyone who will listen.

Solomon is forced to endure titters from the female guests, chiding him for not giving up his freewheeling bachelor's lifestyle when his wife is _clearly in need of peace and quiet in her condition._

Everything he does, she finds some way to counter. He is outmaneuvered, quite possibly for the first time, and by an opponent using the very tactics he employs.

This stuns him; he wasn't expecting Saya to be so adroit. He can't think of a single person in the past, man or woman, whom he hasn't been able to beguile and ultimately rule. But Saya has moved beyond those stratagems. He's never met anyone so doggedly inflexible.

Amid his surprise, a grudging respect creeps in, but he refuses to admit it. Not to her, _especially_ not to himself. That would be tantamount to throwing down the towel in this duel—and he refuses to give up so easily.

Except, this is one battle he _can't_ seem to win. Nothing makes an inroad, not firmness nor finesse. Saya continues to elude him like mist. She has retreated completely into herself, beyond hope or reason, and that makes her impossible to frighten.

 _Nec spe, nec metu_.

Her distance stings like a grain of salt in the eye—unseen, yet twice as agonizing as a consequence. He feels like an intruder in his own home. No way to see his opponent, no way to root out and eliminate the problem.

How can he eradicate the venom of Saya's infidelity, if there is no visible snakebite at all?

The cumbersome days and empty nights make him seethe. He spends long hours in his office, working with the same relentless drive as during the war, under Amshel's orders. Staying busy helps keep him focused. He is not a man for idleness. He needs constant movement and stimulation to keep from sinking into inertia.

Except _nothing is enough_ to distract him anymore.

He always finds himself on-edge, strained. His manner betrays nothing, but at his slightest footfall, clocks wind themselves backwards and flowers wilt on their stems. Servants and associates seem to intuit his dark mood. The maids' hands shake when serving his aperitif; colleagues phrase themselves with exaggerated caution in his presence.

Which, of course, only makes him angrier.

He retreats frequently to the country club in the evenings, literally slamming holes into the walls while playing tennis. He spends nights in confetti-filled clubs and casinos, cigarette smoke and warm alcohol burning the emptiness. Grinds pre-dawn hours zooming across the city in his car, at full speed and in perfect control. Hot engine and sleek chrome turned to the glossy fur and leather reins of the horses he'd ridden across Amshel's château grounds as a human.

Back then, there wasn't a beast in the stables, wild or thoroughbred, that he wasn't able to bring under his command. He misses the satisfying thrill of it. The sensation of wind whistling in his ears, of twigs snapping under the horse's pounding hooves, scenery flying around him like a kaleidoscope.

Misses the emptiness of his own exhaustion afterward. Falling in bed like a sack of bones and sleeping his troubles away.

Women buzz all around him, beautiful and willing—but Saya's _ruined_ him for all of them. All he thinks when he sees them is, _eyes not brown enough, hair not dark enough, face not sweet enough._

They seem like a waste of time. A waste of oxygen and space.

None of them are _Saya_.

As the weeks pass, his frustration grows like a pustule. At times, he's amazed to entertain fantasies of _fighting_ Saya. Just infusing himself in a battle with her, all-out; pouring all his rage into her body, dragging her back into his reach, making her _his_ again.

He wants to feel her blade against his throat, drenched in her blood.

Wants to dare her to run him through, kill him once and for all.

She'd told him, in Berlin, that she _loved_ him. If she really meant it, then she'd spare his life. She'd come back to him, show him that she'd never stopped belonging to him.

Solomon gives himself a mental shake.

He sips his drink, coppery blood with an acerbic kick. A concoction devised by brother Amshel in the war. Stimulant-infused blood meant to heighten awareness and sensation.

Amshel had originally intended to implement it on the Corpse Corps. A steroid.

But Solomon learnt that, taken in measured doses, the mixture kept lethargy at bay, particularly during travels when blood was not easily or openly accessible. It acted as a mood lightener, inducing energy and euphoria during tedious business meetings, or on solitary journeys.

Of course, he'd also learnt that the mixture had more creative uses _outside_ the boardroom. Five sips roused you from melancholy and into a thoughtless buzz. One glass and you could sail around the cityscape until daybreak, absorbing all the sounds and scents like a sponge. One whole liter, and you could plunge into the woods of the highest mountain, throw yourself at the mercy of the nearest howling wolfpack.

Drain every drop of their blood, and remember nothing afterward except the satisfied hum in your veins.

He'd done all that once, with Karl. Still remembers, in years before he'd met Saya, when it was just him, Diva, Amshel and Karl, journeying to Prague.

He'd thought the city was the perfect prowling ground, back then. When all his senses were just as sharp, his movements and thoughts just as precise—but when he'd lived wanting to be happy, rather than right.

He remembered disembarking from the plane, and looking for the first time out at the nighttime cityscape. He'd loved the hulking buildings and crisp air. Everything so lit up, like New York, or London, or Paris. Every shadow, every club, beckoning with blood and bliss and possibility.

Hell, cities like these were _made_ for Chiropterans.

He and Karl had certainly thought so. Left to watch their beloved Diva, they had had such a time out here.

 _Maybe I should slip this into Saya's drink. I'm sure she'll change her tune too,_ Solomon speculates—and shudders.

Karl might've done it. Hell, Karl _would_ have done it. Karl was reckless, even shortsighted. But once he had a goal, nothing had deterred him from attaining it.

Especially when it came to _Saya_.

Solomon has never been quite so audacious. Pity, really. Perhaps things were simpler when one acted on instinct, instead of tactful calculation.

Solomon closes his eyes.

He's boiling in resentment, but he refuses to let it show. Displays of wrath have only resulted in agony between him and Saya. His skin still prickles remembering how he'd treated her _That Night_. Physically swatting her against the wall like an insect.

Attacking the very woman he'd sworn to protect. _Hurting_ and _bruising_ her.

Even though she'd been bruised enough in her past.

He's infinitely sorry for it, but there seems no way to earn her forgiveness. She has shunned him from her core, physically and emotionally.

At least _Diva_ had the courtesy to inform him he no longer meant a jot to her. Whereas Saya told him that she _loved_ him, then cut him out of her life like a tumor.

Oh, she is crueler than Diva could _ever_ be.

Honestly, she's no better than a roadside slut, isn't she? Supposedly in love with _Haji_ , yet choosing _him_ as if impelled by financial collateral rather than finer sentiment. And it occurs to him, with a flare of disgust, that all those nights in his bed, she may have been fantasizing about _Haji_ all along.

Rage starts creeping in.

Really, he should hurt her. Doesn't she deserve that, after how she's treated him? He can break her door down, drag her out by her hair and force her to submit to him on her knees. He can dislocate every bone in her body, piece by piece, tear off each fingernail and shred of skin until she screams for his forgiveness.

He can do it. Since the Great War, inflicting pain has become second nature to him. All he has to do is close his eyes, picture himself carrying the brutality out, and the rest is effortless.

He once tried to kill his own Queen.

He's capable of far worse.

From the window, Saya leans over to adjust the water's temperature. He takes in the view of her smooth pale back and the curve of one breast. The moon outlines her delicate profile in silver. Flashing him back to the countless times, so vivid yet fleeting, he lay spooned against her, watching her sleep.

The bloody images in his head melt to aching grief.

_God._

_Of course I couldn't do that to her._

_I love her so terribly…_

It's true. Despite everything, he still loves her. Loves her _without_ any 'still'.

Her fragility fills him with the most unbearable tenderness for her. He wants to clasp her to him like in the early days, make her laugh, hold and protect her. He wants to reclaim each delicious curve across her body, revel in her every lilting whimper and gasp. Wants her to sleep beside him, her hair fanned out like a mass of heavy silk on the pillows, the blankets trapping her scent and heat like a cocoon.

His warm armful of girl, exquisite as a gem and tenfold more precious.

There is no comfort or satisfaction, except in Saya's arms. No emotion or reality, except when he looks in her eyes.

Without her, he may as well rip his heart out by the roots, fling it down for the world to trample, and subsist as a husk hereafter.

Solomon takes a deep breath, turning away.

He honestly doesn't know how much more he can take. The terror of the Great War, of existing alone for an eternity—hell, even crumbling to his supposed-death in an alleyway with Amshel looking on—was _nothing_ compared to—

_Stop._

He grits his teeth. God, he's acting completely out of control. Jittery as junkie. It really frightens him, how much he needs her. Makes him feel helpless—almost _human_.

Setting his glass down, he exits the flat. Finds himself stripping his clothes off at a deserted crux of the Vltava River. The air is bitingly cold; the moon blazes like a conflagration.

Eyes closed, Solomon plunges headfirst into the icy water.

He barely feels the excruciating impact. Skin still seething for _Saya_ , he lets the current carry him downstream. Wishing, like those Sif creations of Amshel's, that he could just ignite as soon as the sun graces the horizon.

At least then, all these _feelings_ will stop. He is not strong enough to contain them. His ability to bear has never been as powerful as his capacity to feel.

Saya seems half-gone to him now. And he has no idea how to get her back, how to break down these barriers she has erected.

 _Invincibility is in oneself. Vulnerability is in the opponent,_ he remembers Amshel saying, after a prolific business meeting.

Solomon's eyes narrow. He does a few brisk backstrokes, swimming with the current, flowing easily toward the river's edge. He rests his elbows against the rushes there. Around him is the thick outgrowth of trees, the dank, heavy odor of reeds and mud. Far off, the lights of Prague castle twinkle, their reflections playing in green and yellow across the water.

The _best_ way to shatter Saya's barriers, will be to gauge a fissure into them. Find some way to make those walls come crashing down, to bring her back to his reach.

The only question is, what he must do to _make_ that fissure in the first place?

Where does he start?

* * *

Dearest Haji.

I know you'll never really read this. It isn't a letter. I'm never even going to send it. But in some awful way, it helps me, writing it, because I can imagine I'm still _talking_ to you. That's all I really want.

If Solomon finds out, I don't know what he'll do. But I can't keep all this inside me anymore. _I just can't._

God, Haji, nothing's been the same since I said goodbye to you in Milan. I cry each night, hoping I'll see you again. I keep thinking about you all the time—I keep wondering where you are. I wish I knew where you'd gone, but I'm so stupid, I never even bothered to ask you. I've gone on being stupid, over and over, and I don't know if you'll ever forgive me.

I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for everything. There are _no words_ for how sorry I am.

Haji... everything's gone wrong between Solomon and me. All we seem to do anymore is fight. He doesn't hear a word I say. I could scream and scream until I explode, but I don't think he'd ever hear me.

He _never_ hears me, Haji. _He isn't like you_

It's strange. In the war, we've both seen people who were empty inside, haven't we? I thought I was one of them. But Solomon… he's something else completely. You remember those quicksands in the Zoo, don't you? That marshy area Joel forbade us from entering? Remember how we snuck in there anyway, and one of my shoes fell in the sand? How it sank and disappeared?

Haji…that's what I feel like, when I'm with Solomon. It's like he's hollow inside, it's like he just drains everything in, but he keeps wanting more. And for a while, I kept giving him what he wanted, because…god help me, Haji, I think I want him to kill me. _I think some part of me still wants to die._ Sometimes when I used to be in bed with him, I wished he'd reach for my throat and just squeeze the life out of me. I wished he'd end all this for me—I wished he'd set me free.

I'm too much of a coward to do it myself. That's why I wanted you to kill me in the war, didn't I? Except you told me to live, and I realize now that I can't live at all, _not unless it's with you._

I'm so lonely out here, Haji. I thought I was lonely in the war—but I realize now, how stupid I was. I was never alone back then. You were always with me. You made everything so much better, even when you never said anything. But you're gone now, and I have no one to blame for it but myself.

I wish I'd never let you go, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for everything. I know I don't deserve you, but I still hope every second that we'll see each other again. I just don't know what to do with myself anymore. _I can't do this without you._

Yours,

_Saya_

Eyes closed, Saya crumples the paper, tossing it into the fireplace of the livingroom.

The paper shrivels and blackens amid brilliant tongues of flame. The tear-dotted handwriting within, charring to ash, as though trying to eradicate its own presence.

Just as Saya finds herself wishing, as she hears the door clicking open and Solomon returning to the apartment, that she could just dissolve with it.

* * *

It is dawn when Solomon discovers a remnant of the letter.

Saya has gone to bed. He imagines her sleeping restlessly, the way she often does, hair falling into her face, pretty mouth open and pouting like a child's. Diva used to be the same way, always tossing and turning.

She would dream of the tower she'd been trapped in. Sometimes murmuring of it with a nostalgic tenderness, sometimes thrashing awake from nightmares of torture.

Solomon had always been unnerved by that blend of longing and terror, of love and hatred in her eyes.

But he understands now.

That tower, though Diva's prison, the catalyst of her insanity, was also the only home she knew.

He understands the feeling.

Sometimes he wonders: does Saya ever have any dreams of him? Of their babies?

Or just of _Haji_?

Awake all night, feverish indelicate images of her plague his mind every moment. To distract himself, he decides to read by the fireplace, keep himself occupied.

And it is there, amid a heap of char at the grate, that he finds the letter.

The words are mostly indecipherable. But their subtext and significance is loud as a _scream_.

He reads the scant few lines, over and over, until they begin to take logical shape. Until the rage begins to creep in, and his hand starts shaking, nails turning white.

Saya is not there to see the blood draining from his face, the red glow blooming in his eyes. And she certainly can't hear the pulse pounding in his ears, infusing his entire body in an infernal barrage.

A single thought flashes through his mind, before wrath takes hold.

_Enough is enough._

_This... is_ more _than enough._

* * *

_Twenty-two hours later..._

"Haji—stop! It's dead!"

_I know._

_I don't care._

A chiropteran claw slashing a leathery neck. Blood splatters in a gush.

"Haji—come on, enough!"

A sweeping kick, wind whistling in his ears. He feels bone crunching under his boot heel. Can close his eyes; imagine it is _Solomon_ he's battering to pieces. Blood sprays wet and warm across his face, coating the dried layers from all his previous kills.

" _Haji—stop it_!"

Kai's wild tone makes him aware, all of a sudden, of how hard his pulse pounds.

Haji freezes over the butchered remains of his Chiropteran victim. The metallic stench of blood hits him all at once, superseding the bilgy New York air. The Chiropteran nest that Red Shield is cordoning off lies near the lower borough, in an area surrounded by boxlike warehouses. The sky is black except for a cold white moon.

Kai stands with his gun half-raised, eyes wide and wary. "Shit—what's gotten into you?"

Haji takes a deep breath. His whole body zings—deeply, irrationally agitated. Jittery.

"I… I'm sorry. I didn't realize—"

He takes an unconscious step forward. Kai jerks back. His gaze takes in Haji's blood-drenched suit, the red smears on his face like war-paint.

 _You're frightening him,_ a cool voice in Haji's mind registers.

He fights to make his voice level. "Kai—I apologize. I did not mean to get carried away."

"Carried away? You practically _pureed_ the bastard! What's up with you—did you drink too much blood or something?"

"I—"

_I'm just losing my mind, that's all._

_I'm going completely insane._

"I did not mean to frighten you, Kai."

"Frighte—" Kai shakes his head, gruff. "For god's sake, Haji. S'not like I'm a war-virgin or something. Just… are you sure everything's okay with you?"

"Yes, I'm fine." He wants to add _thank you for your concern_. But that would likely embarrass Kai further.

His hands are sticky with blood, nails black and embedded with hunks of spume. He wipes them surreptitiously on the sides of his suit. That just bloodies them further. The material's soaked. He'll have to get another suit.

He would, if the idea didn't seem so ridiculous.

 _What's the point to it? What's the point to_ anything?

Kai clears his throat, holstering his gun. "Well… looks like this area's clear, at least."

"It seems so."

"We should let Red Shield's detail clear up the mess. Our work here's done." Kai hesitates, then glances at Haji. "Lewis and I were going to get some drinks. It's still early. The bars are still open. I've always wanted to try those Long Island teas. You, uh… wanna come along?"

Haji shakes his head. He appreciates the offer, but he has a feeling Kai might end up regretting it. There are so many topics, all revolving around Saya, around Solomon, that Kai and Lewis wouldn't be able to bring up in his presence. Why end up complicating things for them?

_Things are complicated enough._

After Red Shield's staff secures the area, Haji finds himself at the edge of a roof downtown. The city stretches out before him like a vertical jigsaw, giving off a surreal, almost unhealthy glow.

He doesn't understand why he's out here. But he wants to be alone, to gaze out at the city.

It's a sudden need, almost compulsive. He knows he won't see anything comforting here. _Anyone_. But he wants to look down at all the buildings and streets, under him, surrounding him. As he glides through the air, from roof to roof, the cold air fuses him to this frozen concrete wasteland. The moon above is like kindred.

It's that sense of belonging, even within a faceless metropolis, which he craves most since Saya's abandonment.

And can never find anywhere.

He doesn't like New York City. His time spent here with Saya, during the final days before the MET, was tempered only by the warmth of her company. True, in those last weeks, anxiety about Diva's concert filled every thought. But Saya always made his darkness less.

Had he been here without her, in this emotionless metropolis, he would have frozen and died.

_What we've been doing for so long, all this pain and suffering—it'll end without anyone knowing about it. Won't it, Haji?_

Still, there are Chiropteran nests here, and Red Shield needs help in containing them. Just as _he_ needs help finding a purpose. He doesn't enjoy the bloodwork, but it keeps him occupied. The combat keeps his mind centered. The adrenaline keeps his muscles thrumming.

And the violence holds the emptiness at bay.

No wonder, that year after Riku's death, Saya threw herself so deeply in it.

_Again._

_Thinking of Saya._

It can't be helped. Much as he dislikes New York, it's this city, more than anywhere, where her memories come unplugged. Memories that keep him going like a painful sustenance, even when what he wants most is to expire.

After all, it was here that he kissed her— _really_ kissed her—the first time. Where he told her that he loved her.

Still remembers how she'd looked, clinging to his arm in her tattered dress and rain-wet skin. She'd looked into his eyes, given no sign that she could flutter off somewhere else. He'd prayed she'd always stay this way, alive and whole, allowing him the simple joy of being by her side.

Despite the icy air, the backs of his eyes burn.

_Saya…_

_I miss you so much._

The ache of her absence is like an amputated limb. An incompleteness that never goes away.

He's coasting along the edge of Manhattan Bridge when it happens. A sharp knifing pain, like bolt-lightning from the sky. Except _inside_ him—turning him rigid with the first agonizing shock of it. Somewhere far off, a scream echoes, but he has no idea if it's his voice—or _hers_.

_Saya…_

He sees then, as if from a tunnel, Saya screaming and struggling for her life. Blood flying, blinding pain and helplessness. Doesn't know what she's fighting, doesn't know what's going on. Only knows that if he doesn't reach her on time, he'll never see her again.

The premonition is so powerful, that for a moment Haji can only gasp, struggling to wrap his brain around the enormity of it.

_Saya's in danger._

Twenty minutes later, racing to the Red Shield outpost at full speed, he's waylaid by a frantic Kai. Phone in one hand, tickets to Okinawa in the other. Telling him they have to get back to Japan, reconnoiter with David and Julia and _fast_ , because he's just received a near-hysterical phonecall from Solomon.

Saya's gone missing.


	25. Psychosis

**CW: Violence/Gore**

* * *

_How…?_

Immobilized, Saya takes in the scene before her. Throat clenched in an unseen fist.

Really, this shouldn't surprise her.

Inside, she saw it coming.

What surprises is the sensation bolting through her. Scalding her alive, as if she's swallowed a vale of lightning-fire. Tears blur the room; her eyes seem to be melting in hot rivulets down her cheeks.

Leaving livid _red_ behind.

_How could you?_

She hears the sounds the woman makes, throaty intermittent chirps. Her swollen lips, gulping in air, pressing moist and frantic to _his_. Fingers coiled in the white creases of his shirt. Long red nails. Red lipstick. Bunched-up red skirt.

Red like blood.

Suspended in disgust, Saya notices each detail.

How dark and slippery the woman's hair is, swaying over her face. How tanned the flesh of one thigh is, hooked around his waist. How the muscles strain, taut and pulsing, as she slides up and down against the wall, in time to his each grinding rocking movement, her each trilling gasp.

Above them, medieval swords hang gleaming from the wall. A decanter of scotch rests at the table, catching the light from a single lamp. Its rays turn Solomon's hair to gold, throwing hollows against the muscles on his back, the knobs of his spine. His shirt isn't quite off. Melted folds hang from his biceps, exposing the upper-half of his body, the slant of shoulders and pale beads of vertebrae.

Saya doesn't know how long she stands before the _snarl_ tears out.

The woman notices first. She squeaks, jerking against Solomon. Saya recognizes her. One of Solomon's assistants, once-immaculate dress disheveled, hair dripping from her chic updo. Saya has met her before at dinner parties. She's even dropped by at their flat to deliver documents from Solomon's office.

How long has Solomon been doing this with her? Has it been happening all along?

"…How could you do this?" Saya whispers.

Solomon turns slowly, as if he sees no reason to stop what he's doing. His expression is cool. One curl hangs gleaming over his eyes.

Saya remembers, with a sick twinge, how she enjoyed twining that particular strand between her fingers. Tugging it to bring his mouth to hers, to swallow the vibration of his mischievous laugh, his compulsive smile. Remembers how she'd liked raking her nails along those same shoulders, digging them like needles into the hard slant of his hips. Because he'd loved it when she hurt him just a little, turned just a little feral.

He'd sworn to love everything about her for all eternity.

_How. Could. You?_

A sharp pain courses through her, unlike any she's felt since Vietnam.

It hits her: _this_ was how Haji must've felt, when she'd forsaken him for Solomon.

No— _not even this_ —this is _nothing_ to how Haji must have felt.

Haji, who'd devoted every second of his life to protecting her, without once asking for a payment in return. Haji, who'd _loved_ her, in a way she neither realized nor deserved.

And whom she'd abandoned for this man staring so insolently at her now.

Solomon lets the woman go slowly, as if jealous of retreating from her warmth. Sets his clothes right with unhurried precision. The woman is clumsier. Her fingers trip across her buttondown blouse, jerking down her skirt. Her eyes dart from Solomon to Saya. Lips quivering to form words.

Saya fantasizes, for one wild moment, launching herself at the woman, tearing her apart as she screams _mine mine mine!_

But the impulse fades as soon as it blooms. The _mine_ is irrelevant here. Solomon has stopped being hers since their fight in Berlin.

The pain she feels now is only for the time she wasted. For marrying him in the first place, abandoning Haji despite everything he'd done for her.

That vicious question— _How could you?—_ is aimed not at Solomon's treachery, but her _own_.

"I think it's best if you left." Solomon speaks coolly, as if rescheduling a meeting with his bankers. "It might be unwise to stick around."

The woman doesn't need to be told twice. Awkward, she totters past Saya on her highheels. Saya can see the marks Solomon has branded all over her neck. Can practically _smell_ him on her; hear her pulse humming like a buzzsaw in the air.

The apartment door clicks shut. Leaving Saya alone with Solomon.

Her whole body aches as if pummeled. She feels as if she has been wafting on opium all these months, entranced and oblivious, only to have the deadweight of reality slam on her skull.

In a way, she _has_.

She has been hibernating all this time, cocooned from her problems, shut off from the rest of the world. Almost dead. But now ugly reality rushes to drown her. Entire body ringing, a shrill _scream_ like an alarm bell made flesh.

Painfully, _intensely_ awake.

Solomon watches her from a distance, guarded. "I want you to know, that was entirely _ad hoc_."

"Shut up," she seethes. "I don't want to hear about it."

"It did not mean anything. It just happened. I was feeling so pent-up from all this tension at home. I just wanted something that could help me—"

She turns to walk away. " _I don't want to know_!"

Suddenly, Solomon is right before her, grabbing her arm. "Well _I want you to know_. I want to know why you treat me as if I don't exist, especially if it seems I can't be allowed satisfaction anywhere else."

" _Satisfaction_?" Tears burn her eyes, but Saya can't feel them. Can't feel _anything_ except this blinding _rage_ within.

This incident is a caveat of exactly _why_ her marriage must end. She can't stay with Solomon. Each day, it is clearer that choosing him was a mistake. They're all wrong for each other—she should be running back to Haji right now, falling to her knees and sobbing for his forgiveness.

Violence and coercion from Solomon, she might have endured. In the war, both were part of her life and who she was.

But treachery, betrayal, is beyond even _her_ capacity to stomach. It is the very reason she was so wary of Solomon in the first place. If a man could deceive his own Queen, go against his Chevalier's instincts without a qualm—then what real limits did he have? What other atrocities could he be capable of?

With a chill, Saya realizes that she's just finding out.

"I can't do this anymore."

Solomon gaze sharpens like his grip. "What?"

"This, Solomon. Us. It's over. I can't be with you. Not after all this. I'm going back to Okinawa."

"Back to Okinawa? Why?"

" _Why_?" Disbelief paralyzes her. Then she tears away. "After _this_ , do you think I'm going to _stay_ with you any longer? _Do I really need to explain myself about_ why?"

Solomon's eyes narrow, an icy wrath both contained and controlled. "You are not walking away from me, Saya. I will not have you treat me like I'm invisible one minute and cast me off like trash the next."

"Cast _you_ off like trash! You just betrayed me with some _slut_ and now you have the nerve to act like _I'm_ the culprit?!"

"As if _you_ haven't betrayed _me?"_

" _What_?"

"There are different kinds of infidelity, Saya. There's physical, and then there's emotional. For example—" Reaching in his coat, he brandishes a crumpled paper at her face. "If I ever sent _this_ to anyone, wouldn't it come under adultery as much as anything else? Would it not be tantamount to the same thing?"

Saya freezes, recognizing the paper. The letter she wrote to Haji—not a letter, more like a page from a nonexistent diary, a penitent's ghostly words in a confessional. All because Solomon has kept her so stifled that she has no other way to vent her agonies, except through the methods of a caged prisoner.

She pales, lips parting. "Wh-where did you get this?"

"That is none of your concern. But can deny it is yours? That is your handwriting. Those are all your words. Haven't you anything to say about _that_?"

"This… was something I—"

"What? Are you going to tell me you did not write it? Or that it is not addressed to your precious _Haji_? You think you can get away with things like this, and then play the martyr when I cannot take anymore of _your_ transgressions?"

She stiffens. "It's not _my_ _fault_ you were unfaithful to me!"

"If I am, it is only because _you_ are gone." His finger jabs her temple. "Here, in your head, you have ceased belonging to me. It was _your_ indifference that drove me this. _You're_ the one who—"

"You're blaming _me_ for what you did with that woman? This is your way of rubbing my face in my inadequacies? By finding the first woman you can get your hands on, and—"

"I told you. It meant nothing. I don't want her. I want _you_. I always have. But short of breaking your door down and forcing you to the floor to take what I want, there's no other way for me to reach you!"

"No other way to—" Her eyes flash. "So this was your way to get my _attention_? By bringing some nameless woman home to give me a free show? To remind me that what you can't get from me, you can easily acquire elsewhere?"

"I just wanted to shake you out of your stupor! For Christ's sake, we are married, yet you behave as if I'm some filthy habit you decided to drop! You won't sleep with me, nor speak to me, or even look at me! What am I supposed to think? Especially when I keep finding remnants of your darling _Haji_ , wherever I turn my head! If he were so essential to you, why would you choose me in the first place? Why would you marry me at all, if it is only to remind me every second that I can never fill his place!?"

Saya jerks like he's picked her pocket. Blood rushes to her face; she can feel her mouth forming impotent words.

What can she say to that?

He's right.

If there's one thing Solomon does, it's show her what she always fights so hard not to believe about herself. Even in their earliest meetings, this is what drew her so strongly to him. He makes her intensely aware of all those stifled aspects of herself. His unapologetic acceptance of their Chiropteran lineage, his candor of what they truly are—this is what attracted her most, beckoning and seductive in a world where her own origins and priorities felt so skewed.

But at the same time, he makes her lose sight of what is _right and important_ to her; makes her lose sight of who she truly _is_. If Solomon is the tempest crashing around her, Haji is her compass. She can't find her way without him, she will only lose herself if she tries.

In many ways, she already has.

"I'm sorry. I told you before, this was all a mistake. I never meant to hurt you. But… that's why I can't do this anymore, Solomon. We're no good for each other. We need to end this before—"

"End this?" Solomon's rage thaws, face turning strained and pale. It's amazing to watch, like ice melting at a high flame. "Saya, I told you, what happened wasn't intentional. I didn't want that woman. I just wanted to—"

"I _know_ what you wanted, Solomon. You just wanted something to take your mind off the pain. Make everything else go away for a while. Except… none of that lasts for long. All those things we both want… a chance for fresh start, to completely forget everything…life doesn't work like that."

"What?"

"Don't you get it? I chose you for the same reasons. Because I was running from all my problems, and I hoped you'd help me forget all about them. But I can't forget them, and I'm so sorry I didn't realize this sooner."

"You keep talking like I'm some _drug_ you shouldn't have tried out! Yet you told me, in Berlin, that you _loved_ me. Are you going to act like everything between us didn't happen? Like it was all some—some sick hallucination?"

"I _do_ love you!" Her voice strikes sharply off the walls. She winces, looking away. "I do love you, Solomon. I care about you—I can't seem to help it. Maybe it would be easier if I didn't…but nothing about you is that simple. You've done things for me I'll never be able to repay. You've lost so much because of me, and I can never forget that. But I don't love you the same way you love me. I can't. Not enough to live with you."

He seizes her chin, forcing her to look at him. "What makes you think you can switch this off and on at will? What gives you the gall to abandon me like some _toy_ you've outgrown? What about our marriage, and the vows you made to me? What about our _daughters_?"

When he says it, all the blood in her body seems to rush to her womb. The room wavers as if she's going to pass out.

Instead, she whispers. "Our daughters… are the only clean things that _have_ come out of our marriage."

"What?"

"Giving me children is the one way you really have helped me, Solomon. And carrying them is the only good turn I've offered you. But anything beyond that is over now. I won't have them born in a home full of screaming and pain. I can't do that to them."

"Saya…it doesn't have to be that way." Solomon crowds her back against the wall, hands on either side of her. " _Please_ just come back to me. Let things be the way they first were between us. I promise, I will do everything in my power to make you happy. None of this ugliness will ever be mentioned again. You _know_ I can't live without you. You can't possibly do this to me after—"

Saya has to avert her eyes. His gaze is like a red-hot iron. "Solomon. I'm so sorry. I made a mistake, but I need to correct it now. This whole thing—you and me—it just isn't going to work."

"Why shouldn't it work? Saya, I _love_ you. I made you happy once; it can be that way again. You can learn to feel for me the way I do for you. We have an eternity to try. Please—just give me another chance. I don't want to lose you, not after all the happiness you have granted me. Angel, please I—"

"Solomon. Don't make this harder than it already is. I'm sorry, but I've made my decision. I just can't do this anymore. I'm tired. I need to rest."

"And you think… with _Haji_ , you will get that? You honestly think that man can love our daughters the way I do?" He presses a warm hand to her belly. Her babies kick as if galvanized. "—You think that he'll accept you after all you've done? That he will see _you_ the same way? Saya, you _know_ that isn't possible."

She struggles against sharp tears. "Solomon, I'm sorry. Let it go. It's over now."

" _Over_? Saya, emotions don't just turn off and on at will. You can't tell me you feel nothing for me now? I miss you so much—don't you miss me even a little? Things were so good between us—why do you want to ruin everything this way? Please just come back to me. I swear, I will do whatever it takes to change. I'll—"

She tries to break away. " _Don't._ Please just don't—"

He stills her face in his hand, thumb rubbing the curve of her cheek. Looming in, he gently probes her lips with his own. She stiffens but doesn't open. He kisses her again, chin, neck, jaw, but she remains inert. Willing herself not to look at him, not to confess some sign of weakness.

Solomon's jaw clenches. "What's wrong with you? You don't want me anymore? Is that it?"

"Solomon—"

"Or maybe you just liked it better from _Haji_? Maybe you liked it better from him all along?" He reaches out, cups one breast in his hand. Even through the material of her shirt, she feels the heat of his palm. "You like when I do this? Does it make you think of Haji?"

"S-Solomon, please—"

"Did Haji make you feel like this?" Thumb and finger closing around one nipple, squeezing until she squeaks. "Did he make you cry out this way? Like a little slag in heat?"

This scalds her. She elbows him off.

Solomon lurches back, pressing a hand to his face. Quieter, he murmurs, "I'm sorry. That was out of line."

His words still buzz through her, searing. She doesn't answer.

"Your sister was just this way with me too, that's all. Come here, then go away. Like a damned traffic cop. She knew how much I cared about her, but still, it was never enough to keep her happy _. I_ was never enough to—"

At her palely uncertain face, he breaks away, disgusted. But it seems directed at himself more than her.

Saya realizes he despises his own ineptitude for prompting this betrayal, far more than he does her for carrying it out. His time as Diva's Chevalier was composed of nothing but. Of feeling worthless, useless, at every turn.

And by rejecting him, she's only validated those pathetic images he has of himself.

"Solomon, I-I'm not saying our marriage didn't happen… or that it wasn't good while it lasted, but its over now. I can't do this anymore. I'm sorry."

He jerks back as if burnt. "So… you really mean to forsake me for Haji?"

She winces. Part of her wonders if Haji will even take her back after this. But either way, her liaison with Solomon is truly finished—and she nods to tell him so.

Solomon draws a shaky breath. For a moment she wonders if he's about to cry.

But his face is unmarked, impassive. A vein ticks in his jaw.

"Over my dead body."

"Wh-what?"

He grabs her arm.

"Solomon, what're you—" She freezes when he flicks out his pocketknife. Light bounces off the bright metal, reflecting her wide eyes. Suddenly the only sound in the room is her pounding heart.

Solomon presses her against the wall, knife raised. Does he mean to cut her open? Still, she doesn't move to stop him. Her whole body feels jammed in quicksand.

"S-Solomon, what're you—" She gasps as he yanks up her palm, slashing the blade across it.

Blood wells from the wound, smearing the knife. Solomon draws it away to squeeze the blade in his own palm. Skin slits, her blood mingling with his, catalyzing that reaction that she knows too well.

When Solomon drops the knife, there are gray cracks branching across his hand. Brittle shards, like crumbling granite, spreading to his fingers, up his wrist, into his sleeve.

Saya is so stunned she can only stare.

No.

_No._

" _Solomon_!"

Her husband doesn't even flinch. His expression is drained, eerily composed. "I'm sorry, Saya. If I can't keep you here, I can't bear to let you go, either. Perhaps it's better all around, if I do this. I can't stand watching another man take what's mine, right before my eyes."

"Solomon— _what are you doing_?!"

"Doing what we both want. Now if you'll excuse me a moment—"

His entire hand is ashen now. But he acts as if nothing is wrong. Sidling to the dining table, he pushes a chair out with his foot, slumping into it. Shakes the hair from his eyes in a careless, boyish gesture, picking up the decanter of scotch with his undamaged hand.

He takes a long swig, faster and deeper than she has ever seen anyone put away.

"S-Solomon—"

He pauses mid-gulp. "I'm so sorry. But I think you know as well as I do, how it feels to have nothing to live for. And without you, I really do have nothing. Might as well go out on a high note, and end things the easy way, right?"

Saya blanches, nausea swooping in.

Ohgod— _this will kill him_.

Kill him the same way her father died, kill him the same way she dispatched Riku to his grave. Karl. James. Irene. _Diva_.

Death—nothing but death everywhere around her.

_No—I can't let this happen!_

Acting on instinct, she lunges for Solomon. He cries out as she slams him to the floor. The scotch decanter crashes away.

She grabs fistfuls of his shirt, tearing it wide open, buttons skittering. His arm has crystallized _so fast_ —the whole limb is rock solid. Gray cracks spread toward his shoulder, over his chest. She needs to stop them—needs to cut them off before—

Her eyes alight on the swords hanging from the wall. Decorative bronze hilts with razor-sharp blades. She flashes back to that mission in Vietnam, where Phantom axed off his own leg to stop the crystallization. It had worked for him. He'd managed to escape her and get away.

_Maybe I can—_

"Saya—" Solomon seems to intuit what she's thinking. "Don't bother. If you've any mercy left, just send me off. Just kill me so that I—"

" _Shut up_!" She shakes him hard before rushing to the blades. With a grunt, she yanks a sword from its hooks. It is surprisingly heavy in her hands. Listing from its weight, she hurries back to Solomon. Planting her feet on either side of him, she hefts the weapon two-handed over her head.

Solomon's eyes widen. " _No_ —"

Before he finishes, the blade whistles down, cutting fang-sharp into his arm and shoulder. There is a _massive_ blood-spray. She feels the tear of stringy muscle, the crunch of splintered bone. Has to swing the sword twice to fully sever his arm. Red matter splashes the walls, flooding the carpet, her clothes and arms.

Red sprays across Solomon's face. His head lashes back in a _snarl_.

Flinging the sword aside, Saya drops to her knees. The carpet is soaked in blood—Solomon's torn arm lies a few feet off, inert and stony as a sculpture's. One side of his shoulder is a ragged stump, but there are no more cracks. The infected part was sliced off in time.

Blood spreads out under him in a dark circle, in tandem with Saya's sharp relief.

_Thank God._

"Why—did you—" Solomon is breathing raggedly, skin waxy with sweat. "Why did you—stop me—"

Her eyes blaze. "I'm not letting someone else I care about die because of my blood! I won't have another death on my conscience!"

"It wasn't _about_ you—"

"I don't care! I'm won't let you do this!" She grabs his face, shaking him hard. "Don't die, Solomon! For God's sake—don't do this to me! I never meant to make you suffer this way! _Please_!"

"Get. Off. Me—" With the other arm, he tries to shove her off. But the blood-loss has weakened him. He tries to sit up, but dizziness slumps him back on the carpet. She can almost feel him trembling with the effort not to groan.

So much like herself—refusing to let anyone see what they see so clearly.

She presses a hand to his cheek. "Please. Stay still. I need to get some blood into you—"

His eyes flash red. "From where? _Your neck_?"

Lightning-fast, he grabs her throat. She strikes him on reflex. He hits the bloody carpet with a _squelch_ , panting. Red eyes fixed on hers, giving off a horrible heat.

God, what's _wrong_ with him? Is the blood loss making him delirious?

Her eyes burn.

She never meant for this to happen. She never meant to do _any_ of this to him.

"Please, Solomon. Please stay where you are. Just let me get some blood."

She runs to the kitchen, moving awkwardly because of her belly. But there are no blood packs in the refrigerator. Either Solomon had forgotten to order more, or they all finished last night. Hands trembling, she jerks the drawers and cupboards open, looking for other packs, bottles, cases. Nothing.

She runs to the locked cooler in his study. Punching in the memorized code, she wrenches the handle open. Three full blood packs inside, with old Cinque Fleshe logos. They're shaped differently from the usual packs Solomon feeds her—but she's seen him using these during long travels. Perhaps they're richer in nutrients?

There's a warning label under each pack, but the detail doesn't register.

Not until hours and shrieking horrors afterward.

Snatching them up, she runs to the dining room. Caught up, all the while, in thoughts of Haji. How frantic she'd been when he'd fallen from that cliff at the Zoo, and when he'd sipped her blood and started flailing like a marionette. All the chaos that had followed. The blazing mansion. Joel's corpse. Diva's smile. All her mistakes, her _stupidities_ , led to one irreversible tragedy after another.

Solomon is a tragedy too, ruined and heartbroken because of _her_. She must face up to everything she's done to him.

Running to the livingroom, she sees that Solomon has crawled to a corner by now. There's a long smear of blood in his wake. Propping himself against the wall, he touches the pulpy stump of his shoulder with a jittery hand.

Seeing her, his eyes crackle.

"Should've just let me _die._ "

"Solomon, you know I can't do that. I care about you—I can't let you—"

" _Care_?" He lets off a sharp cruel laugh, then hisses and clutches his shoulder. "You wouldn't know the word if you tripped over it, you heartless witch. You supposedly cared for _Haji_ too—but that didn't stop you from abandoning him, did it? Then you claimed to _love_ me, while the truth is, you're incapable of that sentiment in every goddamn sense of the term."

"Solomon…" She's never heard him talk this way.

"You can pretend all you want. Pretend you've got human emotions, that you're capable of feelings. I'm sure that sweet little face of yours would fool everyone. Except your heart's a piece of flint—god help anyone who tries to sink his teeth into it. Christ knows, I got defanged trying to sink in mine."

"Solomon—please stop talking like that. You're losing too much blood—you aren't healing as fast as you should be." She comes closer, tearing a blood-pack open.

Solomon blanches. " _No_ —I don't want—"

She thinks it is sheer perversity. A little boy screaming out of exhaustion that he doesn't want to sleep. But, looking back on it later, she'll try to replay, justify, each thought and action from that moment. Try to decide where her first mistake was, to parse out where she acted wrongly, where she should've done something different.

Because what happened next, she would never forget.

Solomon tries to crawl past her, but she seizes his shirtfront, dragging him back. "Solomon, please. Don't do this just to spite me. Just take the blood!"

She presses the dripping pack to his mouth. He whips his head left and right, lips curdling in disgust. " _No! I don't want—_ "

"Solomon—" No choice but to fight dirty. Reaching for his bloodied chest, she finds a nipple, twisting it until he _howls_.

The moment his lips part, she thrusts the dripping pack into his mouth. He gags, but she presses harder against his lips, rubbing his windpipe until he starts swallowing. Blood dribbles down his chin and between her fingers. The aroma is thick, sharper-smelling than she is accustomed to.

She waits until he has wrung the pack dry, before making him drain the second, then third. As he drinks, his pulse jumps like gunfire under her fingers. Skin flushing, breathing going erratic. His eyes widen, flickering in and out of focus.

Concerned, she draws the pack away. "Solomon… are you all right?"

"God—w-why did you—" He sounds strange, almost fevered. Pupils of eyes dilated, ring of green completely covered.

"Solomon, what's wrong with you?"

He grimaces, throwing his head back. All the veins in his throat rise like wires.

The bloody stub of his shoulder coalesces, knitting to muscle and bone, faster than she's ever seen. It's like watching a video of a plant growing on fast-forward. Arm extending, branching into blue veins and red sinew. Overlapped by a coat of pale flesh, layer upon layer. Forming palms, fingers, thumbs, nails.

She imagines this is how her babies have been growing, inside her womb. Tiny cells burgeoning into skin, into limbs and bodies and lives.

As his arm regenerates, Solomon gasps as if pained. Beads of sweat cling to his forehead. His whole body is racked in a violent shuddering.

"Solomon—what's wrong?"

His eyes dart to hers. Voice deep-throated, almost demonic. How he sounds when he is in his full Chiropteran form. " _Get—out of here_ —"

"What?"

"Go—just _get out of_ —" He breaks off with a snarl—a deafening rumble like an engine. The sound shoots like a current up her spine.

And the Chiropteran in her knows it like a bad wound.

_Danger._

"Solomon…"

He is trembling harder now. Breathing ragged, sweat dripping past his nose, sliding down his neck. Veins she's never seen before rise across his body.

She remembers the mental mapwork she'd once made, of all the veins and freckles on his skin. He is pale like Haji—one can see all the blue tributaries on his wrists, on the backs of his palms. He has a tiny black mole under his left ear. Another on his thigh, and between the fingers of his right hand. A strange scar, probably a wartime injury, branded on his right flank.

Spiral-shaped, she remembers calling it. Like a nebula or a black hole.

Which is exactly what Solomon's eyes are like now.

Blazing red, staring at her, right _into_ her. Sucking all the warmth out of her body.

"Solomon?" Warily, she reaches for him. He jerks back with a growl. The fangs are bright between his bloody lips, gleaming like scimitars. "Solomon, what's happening to you?"

"Go—just go. Get out—!"

"What?"

Abruptly, he doubles over, clutching his stomach. Body taut, trembling like a puppet's. She feels a peculiar hum around him, a static buzz like from a high-tension pylon. He looks like he might shoot up any moment and start flying and smashing all over the room like an unleashed electric surge.

"Solomon…" She reaches for him, but jerks back when he swats her off.

She stumbles hard into the shelf behind her. It sways wildly, rows of cutlery crashing down. Saya shrieks, hands raised to deflect the avalanche.

Then Solomon is there, tackling her down, rolling on top of her to shield her from the cascade.

The flood of metal and glass is deafening. Cutlery _clangs_ all around them. A dish shatters two inches from Saya's head. Knives dig like arrows across the carpet. Solomon is heavy and overheated on top, taking the entire downpour. She feels him gasp as jagged metal chunks strike his back and shoulders.

When he lifts his head, his eyes are frantic, swimmy. "Are you—all right?"

Winded, she can only nod.

At once, Solomon hauls her up by the arm. "Listen to me. I don't have a lot of time. You have to go to the study. Find a tranquilizer—get _anything_ to sedate me with. _Knock me out before I_ —"

"Knock you out? Solomon, what are you talking about? Why are you acting so strange—"

" _Just do what the hell I tell you_!"

" _No_! At least tell me what's wrong first! Is it because of the blood I gave you? Did it—"

Suddenly Solomon jerks back on a scream, hand flying to his forehead. The veins in his temples bulge like cords.

"Solomon—"

He gives off a sharp snarl, doubling over. Entire body shuddering, as if cold or in pain. His lips spill a fractured litany into the air, a hissing stream _of oh god oh god oh christ oh god_. Hands slipping, clawing at his flesh, as if trying to flay it off. Chest, neck, arms, legs, wrist—everywhere at once.

All the muscles on his body rise, turning erect. The _tic-tic-tic_ at his throat tells her just how fast his heart is racing.

And she understands, too late, why he told her to sedate him.

When his head whips up, there is no recognition in his gaze.

His eyes are red and delirious. Expression an emblem of pure insanity.

"Solomon…" Nervous, she takes a step back. A broken teacup crunches under her bare foot. She shrieks, hopping on one toe, yanking the shard from her heel. Blood trickles from the cut, its deep aroma suffusing the air.

Solomon's nostrils flare. He lets off a sharp growl, sidling closer. She realizes he is lured to the scent of her blood. Loping fast and menacing toward her, a predator on the prowl for prey.

She raises trembling hands. "S-Solomon… wait! What's wrong with you? Don't you recognize me!"

Head tilted, he takes her in without seeing her at all. Blinking slowly, as if his eyes don't work anymore.

His head moves around the ravaged room, examining it as if for the first time. She imagines how it must look: the bloodstained carpet and red-speckled walls. The upended shelf. The glittering mess of china and silverware spread out on the floor. The bloodied sword.

The crystallized arm.

He freezes when he sees his severed limb. His hand flies immediately to his rejuvenated arm, clutching it as if shot. Eyes narrowing, a strange consternation pulling his features down.

He turns back to her with a growl.

"Solomon? What's wrong with you? It's me. It's Saya. Don't you recognize me?"

He doesn't answer. Merely lunges at her, whiplash sharp.

Startled, Saya ducks out of his way. Solomon slams into the shelf behind her. The crash reverberates through the entire room.

Heart hammering, she whirls. "Solomon—!"

He charges again. Saya evades narrowly, crouching behind a high-backed chair. "Solomon! It's me! Snap out of it! What's happening to you!?"

His face is so pale she can see the fine arterial veins on his temples. Sweat rolls down his forehead. His eyes are fixed on hers. Feral and unmoving. Filled with nothing but the purest, most unadulterated terror and madness.

A chill seizes her:

_Oh God—this must have been how I acted, when I went crazy in Vietnam..._

Then Solomon's lips twitch, stretching into a smile. Not his usual smile, but a smile unlike any she's ever seen before. All the teeth showing, outlined in blood. An animal baring his fangs at the enemy.

Suddenly, Saya wants to scream.

Instead she jumps onto the table, vaulting it for the sword on the floor. She doesn't want to hurt him, but the look on his face is _terrifying_. She needs something, _anything_ to defend herself with.

Solomon leaps after her onto the table. Crouched on all fours like an animal.

She bends to scoop up the sword, just as he dives at her, poised to strike. Says cries out as his sudden weight slams her down. She hits the carpet face-first, her belly taking the full-brunt of the fall. A sharp pain explodes through her. For a moment, she nearly blacks out.

Solomon snarls, breath humid on her nape. His elbows and knees make four knobs of agony on her back. Fangs sinking, without warning, right into her neck.

She cries out in more shock than pain. Red lights erupt before her eyes. Solomon's mouth makes an obscene liquid sucking noise as he drains her blood. She feels it streaming warm and sticky down her shoulder, plastering her hair to her throat.

Whole body weightless, papery, held prisoner by his weight.

And a familiar seductive whisper, so often heard in the war, floats in:

_Don't struggle._

_If you stop moving, he'll kill you._

_It will all be over._

The moment she hears it, she almost succumbs. Beautiful surrender, filling her whole body until her arms, her legs, her very heart, fade to fog. Beyond the oblivion of hers and Solomon's lovemaking, beyond the reprieve of her Long Sleeps. Wonderful death, wafting through her like an opiate, gently detaching her from life.

Until the babies kick inside her.

Her heart jumps, and she feels, as if for the first time, the cool circlet of Haji's bloodstone against her chest.

_No._

She elbows Solomon in the ribs, shoving him off. He grunts and rolls back, fangs stained with her blood. Mouth and neck smeared red, glistening.

Saya staggers up. Whole body a pulsar of pain—worst in her spine, the ache stabbing like a dagger.

Solomon regroups quickly, circling her with a growl. She sees his tongue moving against his red teeth, relishing the blood that is as fatal to him as a gulp of cyanide.

A wild dismay fills her.

" _Solomon, no_!"

But he can't understand her. There is no sign of sanity on his face, let alone reason. Whatever was in those blood-packs has pared him down to the psychosis of pure instinct. Whetted him to an absolute beast.

This slavering, crimson-eyed demon—he is no longer her infuriating unfathomable impossible husband. He is not the Solomon she knows.

And in a few moments, he will cease to be anything but a frozen memory.

He lunges for her again, but she swerves away. Her eyes rake his form wildly, alert for any cracks or graying. How hasn't he crystallized yet? Surely a few sips are all it would take to—

She notices then, in greater detail, the cut Solomon inflicted on her palm. The wound should have healed up minutes ago. But its red lips are only half-closed.

Suddenly, she has a sick flash of rainfall and theater lights at the MET. Diva facing her in a tattered blue gown, a scarlet stain spreading on her chest. Blood streaming from her pale hands, finger rived in cracks.

_Why? Why is it only happening to me?_

A chill races through her.

_Oh no..._

Both Solomon and Dr. Julia had told her about this. Her healing would slow down, the moment her blood lost potency. And as soon as it did, she could expect her blood pressure to shoot up, and her cervix to start dilating. A signal that she was about to go into labor.

Saya freezes in place.

If her blood's poisonous content has finally diffused, then it will no longer have any effect on Solomon than _Diva's_.

And if that is true, then—

_I'm going to give birth soon._

_In a few hours... it's really going to happen._

An influx of terror strikes her. She realizes, until this moment, she hasn't been thinking about the childbirth at all.

At the same time, Solomon's livid eyes meet hers.

And she understands that she has to knock him out, put him under, before he does something unforgivable to both her _and_ the babies.

Impelled by sudden urgency, she runs for the door. She recalls what he'd said about tranquilizers in his study. If she can reach them in time, if she can inject Solomon before he—

He grabs her flying hair in a fist, dragging her back. Saya screams as he slams her against the wall. Black spots dance in her field of vision. He holds her aloft over the floor, toes dangling, neck locked in his fist. She has a horrible split-second glimpse of his twisted face and blazing eyes before he leans in, fangs digging into her throat.

She cries out as sharp incisors pierce her skin, spilling blood down her neck. She struggles wildly; an erratic kick to his groin frees her.

Solomon howls, stumbling back. Saya slumps to the floor, wheezing raggedly. She feels the sticky warmth of her blood streaming down her neck, staining her collar and blouse. The room wavers like a shaky video-still.

From the corner of her eye, she registers Solomon moving into a strange crouch. Flat-footed, legs splayed, fingers wriggling like a nest of vipers. A dance?

No. A savate stance.

_He must've been trained to fight that way in the Great War._

She barely evades the sudden jab of his open palm. The wall behind her cracks, plaster flying. Screaming, Saya scrambles out of his way. Solomon cuts her off in an eyeblink. One brutal straight-armed jab strikes her ribcage, sending her flying back. She hits the edge of the table, gagging in pain. Her ribs feel like they have been hammered by a cannonball.

Breathing hard, she leans against the table on trembling arms. Her eyes alight on the vase of roses before her.

Moving on instinct, she grabs the vase just as Solomon lunges for her again, whirling to smash the object in his face. Glass shatters, shards flying. Solomon growls and lurches back, blood streaming down his face. A large chunk of glass is embedded in his hairline. One side of his head is dark and matted with blood.

Roses tumble across the floor. The carpet is soaked with water from the vase, mingling with Solomon's dripping blood. Shards of glass glitter like gemstones at their feet, a few stained red from blood, others clear as teardrops. Emblems of fragility, of irretrievable danger and destruction.

Solomon's eyes blaze under crimson-stained curls.

Saya realizes, with a sinking dread, that he really does intend to kill her.

And in some eerie way, after how she jettisoned and ultimately ruined him, he has every right.

Tears fill her eyes.

"Solomon. I'm so so sorry…"

It is all she manages before Solomon slams her down, and the volley of blows begins.


	26. Aegri Somnia

**CW: Violence/Gore**

* * *

Everything erupts into chaos.

He plunges through light and shadow, screams and moans and laughs igniting in his head. Tiny snippets of aromas, flickering flavors and tunes. Fistfights and splattering blood. Glimmering wineglasses, a shattering green bottle. A chainlink fence and cracked flesh. Saya in a white dress, windblown at a roof's edge.

Each image, inescapable, carrying a maelstrom of memories and emotions.

_I'm… happy about your feelings._

_Your word, my big brother, is my will too._

_Farwell, Solomon Goldsmith._

Drowning in sight and sound, simultaneously groping through the haze as if struck deaf and blind. A single name sears the edges of his consciousness. So distinct, yet so impossible to place.

_Diva? Saya?_

Memory erupts into a tear of recognition. White fingers tangled like spiders in his hair. Red lips crushed to his, feeding him humid gusty breath between each shuddering sob. Canted deep into sweltering heat and pulse. Staring between each gasp into hazy eyes that flicker from _blue_ to _red_ to _blue_ —

_Diva?_

_Saya?_

Images melting to bright sunlight and emerald grass and his sword-arm slashing Diva's throat. Resolving like a kaleidoscope, a bloodstained Saya charging with eyes red and sword upraised.

_Take my hand. Come with us now._

_Solomon. You want to play with us too?_

He struggles but can't escape the onslaught. Like being caught in a riptide, whirling through massive overpowering waves. Except that riptide is now _inside_ him. Mind igniting like a bomb to unleash a trapdoor of limitless sensations.

Far off, an ethereal whisper. Barely felt, yet the only thing that _can_ be felt. Over and over, it says one thing.

_Wake up._

He struggles wildly, trying to narrow the voice out. Feels it everywhere, yet _nowhere_.

A dollop of memory. A cold room, soft hands on his. Candlelight flickering beside his mother's deathbed.

 _"Don't,"_ she tells him, voice little more than a whisper. _"Don't confuse your duty with your dreams. Existence isn't the same as living."_

Her body is cadaverous, consumed in ten months by an ill-begotten cancer. She was beautiful once, with curly gold hair and a smile full of promises. But an unhappy marriage into wealth had cut every promise short.

Solomon was her only child; the very picture of her.

Probably explained why his father could never stand the sight of him.

 _"Life can be fetters or freedom, Solomon. It's your own choice to wake up and decide, which one_ you _want."_

_Wake up._

He remembers the words, lunging muddy and blood-splattered through trenches of the Great War.

A German soldier breaks through the rain of 150's shellings. Solomon's bowie knife sings as he slashes it into the intruder's eye. Bloody jelly erupts. His victim's mouth distorts in an insane _scream_ , and Solomon lets the hate and adrenaline wash over him. All around, the _rat-tat-tat_ of weapons, air thick with fear and shit and bloating corpses.

But his own heart pounds too fast for him to take it in.

His first kill: ludicrously simple. Wrenching his knife out, he stabs the man from navel to throat, coating both their uniforms in blood. The man dies in silence, barely struggling. But as the last air leaves his lungs, he sputters something—perhaps a name. His wife's? His mother's or daughter's?

Solomon has no idea.

He tells himself it isn't important—even as he spends the remainder of that night washing his hands over and over, until they're as red and raw as his eyes.

His days and nights are hellishly blurred; he no longer recognizes his face in puddles of water or splintered mirrors. Nails cracked and crusted with blood, fingers callused from swabbing out carbines and jabbing in eyes. The long days in trenches, eating tinned scraps and sipping murky water, turn him to a living gristle.

But he's gotten good at closing his eyes, tuning it all out. Learnt to shut his mind completely, not to move, waste energy, unless necessary.

He lives out each day by saving strength. While people scream and pray in the trenches, while the sky burns with explosions and the ground trembles, while he is hungry and exhausted, Solomon sleeps like nothing is wrong.

He sleeps even when he's wide-awake.

_Wake up._

He keeps waiting, with every life he takes, to feel something. Some atavistic revulsion, some deep primal horror over the _wrongness_ of his actions. But there's nothing there. In a way, perhaps it is impractical, even stupid, to imagine there would be. In real life, the immensity of day-to-day circumstances drowns out decorations such as _right_ or _wrong_.

Morality has no place alongside survival. Here, in this warzone of life, degradation reigns supreme. God and goodness are a myth.

_We're all just animals._

_We'll never be anything better than animals._

The realization spawns a deep bitterness in him. An awful terror about the workings of the world.

He sees things in the war that grant him immunity against horror for the rest of his life. Rotting fields of bodies, gnarled hands sticking out like plants from the soil. Headless torsos exploding in shrapnel and spume. People vomiting out their own entrails, butchering each other over make-believe ideals.

And each day, he falls as if into a bottomless pit. One kill leads to another, then another. Going on and on, robbing him of every shred he has left to call innocence. It's like those stories his mother once told him, about people selling their souls. A single evil gives way to thousands more, until he's sucked in so deep he no longer remembers who he is anymore.

Each day tears a wound into his soul. A gash that won't close over.

 _"There's more to life than this, you know,"_ Brother Amshel tells him.

They are seated at the long table in Amshel's château. The war is over now. Solomon works as a medical doctor, struggling, with the rest of the country, to recover from the war's insidious repercussions. His daily routines slide by without incident. But inside, nothing's the same.

He neither sleeps nor smiles; the faintest human touch drives him to convulsive disgust. Words like _compassion_ and _emotion_ are no longer at the tip of his tongue.

He prays every moment like a shipwrecked man. Sometimes to die, other times to live.

_I don't want to be here. I want to be somewhere else._

But since the war's ended, he feels that way about everything.

 _"The whole world functions like a net, Solomon,"_ Amshel explains. _"We're all tied into it, by intertwined desires and purposes. To get what we want, there are ways all around us to achieve it. And the same is true of whatever_ you _want."_

Solomon nods, understanding, yet not. He sees red embers die at the fireplace. Smoke spirals into the air, shriveling out of sight in a manner that, due to insomnia or general despondency, seems to imply something.

_What do I want?_

He wants, more then anything, to feel alive again. _To_ _wake up._

Amshel's eyes are narrow. Intense yet somehow impersonal.

People say that the eyes are the windows to the soul. But Brother Amshel's are more like daggers. They cut through everything and everyone, as if he can see their viscera, their very thoughts.

They make Solomon feel as if he has nowhere to hide.

_"Whatever any man desires, Solomon—it is entirely in his own means to attain. Fools philosophize on luck and destiny, but the most vital means of success is action. To get what you want, you need only the incentive to reach out and take it. The choice is entirely yours."_

They've been discussing this matter for months now. About Solomon joining Amshel on what the older man refers to as a 'higher purpose'. An initiation—one that will free Solomon of all the weight from the war. Above Amshel's head, Solomon sees the Goldsmith's coat of arms. A unicorn and a lion poised on opposite sides, rearing on their hind legs as if in mid-battle. In the center, a fist clutching five arrows.

Below are the words: _Unity, integrity, industry._

Funny. The war's taught him that no human possesses those qualities.

Solomon swallows, making his choice. Far off, his mother's words ring, a cathartic echo.

_Wake up._

_"Very well."_ His features are not stiff—merely too poised for relaxation. _"I'll accept your offer, brother Amshel. I want to see what this initiation's all about."_

On that night, he's introduced to Diva.

God, he's still haunted by that first glimpse of her. His darling Queen. Limbs pale in a dripping black cobweb of hair. Violet eyes pinned to his with such _hunger_.

_It seems she likes you._

Drowning in a puddle of his own blood, he gulps in the liquid she offers him like salvation. Doesn't know who or _what_ she is—only knows that she's unleashing him to freedom.

At least on the surface.

His ensuing years are a salvo of adrenaline. His world, so dull and gray after the war, floods with aroma and sparkle and sound. Bliss to the senses. He lets go of every inhibition, every small-minded sensibility a gentleman of his standing should possess. Limitations aren't his problem anymore—he's _free_.

The era tumbles in a mélange of cocaine and laughter and glittering bugle-beads. Every night a spree of delight and chaos. He remembers smoky clubs and tireless dance marathons, business meetings and tumbleweed travels, endless floods of champagne and blood. Diva curled up beside him each night in a silken spill, the shape echoed by the laughter pouring from her lips.

The world changes, skyscrapers and highways thrusting from the ground. Music plunges from Debussy to twirling disco balls and rock guitars. Cars distorting from satanic Sunbeams to purring Jaguars. Women's skirts shrinking from ankles to knees to thighs, suffragettes legalizing bastards and equal pay; hippies advocating free love and peace on earth.

While greed and politics, that inherent evil of man, remains untouched.

_Wake up._

Solomon watches it play out, sometimes an observer, often a participant. As time drags on, his face assumes a strange expression; one that he'll wear for the rest of his life. Eyes cool and heavy-lidded. Lips curved in an ironic not-quite-smile, directed both at himself and the world.

Even now, when everything's changed, nothing really has.

Even nights where he and Diva are their freest, wrapped up in kisses and bites as tasty as blood, even when he and Karl race deliriously across moonlight, hunting game through forests and metropolises, even when time drags on like chains, scarring everything around him, yet leaving him eternally young, eternally strong…

...Even then, he subsists through life like a sleepwalker. Passion and finer sentiments hold no sanctity for him—the disconnection he felt as a human never leaves.

Perhaps he was a fool to ever think it would.

_The more things change, the more they stay the same._

By the time he's CEO of Cinque Fleshe, he's resigned himself to this concave existence. He's part of an eternal kinship that works to trap the world in their net—a net he's perfectly content to help them weave. Brother Amshel tells him that by exploiting the humans' shared vices, they can be ruled, and ultimately destroyed, regardless of class or creed.

Alone in his towering office, Solomon gazes out at Paris' cityscape. Taking in the tight-gummed tenements and lofty high-rises, understanding what those people, rich or poor, have in common. Regardless of age or race, they all share the weakness of hunger and sickness. Food and medicine is a mandatory requirement.

Which is precisely what Cinque Fleshe caters to.

_Impose your attack insidiously, and victory is guaranteed._

Solomon injects every inch of his phenomenal energy into his work. Doesn't matter whatever his aim—his means are unparalleled. Diva's favorite boy and Amshel's right-hand man, head of a swiftly-sprawling empire, he gets his every wish by smiling rather than frowning.

But sleep now eludes him forever. Human touch still feels revolting.

And inside, he still chants:

_I don't want to be here. I want to be somewhere else._

On the surface, every aspect of his life is smooth. His days are busy, open and impersonal as a train terminus. People gravitate to him; he comes close to no one. Bevies of socialites, desirable women and prominent businessmen, all buzz around him, eager for his attention, his approval.

His manner remains unchanging. The same in the board's meetings, at dinner parties, in an elevator, or during sex. Urbane, considerate, amused and faintly aloof. Numbness closing all the while, like a fist at his throat.

Until the night of the Lycee ball.

_"Pardon me, but may I kindly have this dance?"_

It is Rosh Hashanah when he meets her—what his mother used to call the day one's future was being written down in the Book of Life. Solomon's amazed he still remembers it. He thought he'd discarded every religious detail since he became a Chevalier.

_The more things change, the more they stay the same._

The girl before him is a vision of pink lace and cupid-bow lips. Petite and shorthaired as a _garçonne_ —those flat-chested flappers so popular in the 1920s. Her face resembles Diva's, but with none of his Queen's irresistible vivacity.

Her's is a beauty that's subtler, sweeter. A secret meant only for him to discern.

_"Just hold out your right hand."_

Their fingers touch, and something strange happens. He's still not sure what it is—but he won't forget it as long as he lives.

Suddenly the sizzling chandeliers, the ballroom's hum, the effusion of perfume and silk, fades to fog.

Each scent and sensation draining into _her_.

She gives the word _life_ its own aroma and music that night. And in her gaze, he feels, for the first time in decades, human, trembling, _alive._

_"When dancing the waltz, make sure to look into your partner's eyes."_

He has no idea who she is, nor she him. Only knows that she feels like absolute perfection, right down to her center. Her smile, the light of her eyes, is sublime.

No idea that they're arch-enemies, each sworn to destroy everything the other stands for.

Despite the carnage, they feel _perfect_ together. From the start.

_Traitor is such a simple word for such a complex truth. It sounds so final and distinct, like death or birth. But it's really a long slide of fleeting actions and unthinkable thoughts. It starts small, and then it branches out to control every thought and breath, until one day you realize you're not the same person anymore._

_Just like madness. And love._

His head churns, thoughts flapping like a million bats swooping from their cote. He hears a familiar sobbing somewhere. Little fingers in his hair, little mouth against his neck.

_Please…_

_Please wake up._

His eyes snap open.

The mosaic on the wall is huge. A cascade of multicolor shards; the visual explosion of a forgotten fairytale. By its spectrum, the tub he and Saya are immersed in looks spectral, ghostly.

Saya's eyes are closed. She reclines on one end of the tub, Solomon on the other, face-to-face, legs overlapping. Her skin is flushed from the hot water, hair dripping. One small foot dents his stomach, the other bent against his thigh. The mosaic's tiles reflect off her glistening skin.

Solomon gently rubs her instep. _"Euro for your thoughts?"_

Saya's eyes flutter open. _"Hm?"_

Her face bears that faraway look he so dreads—as if she's floated somewhere he isn't meant to follow. But strangely enough, he recalls this moment as being one of the happiest points of their marriage. There was no wedge of coldness between them yet. Away from Haji's influence, Saya finally seemed to be opening up to him. Her every glance held a growing sweetness that nearly melted his brain.

 _"What're you brooding about?"_ he asks gently.

A hesitant smile. _"Um… nothing, really. I'm all blank. And sleepy."_

_"Of course. Which is usually when the morbid thoughts begin ticking."_

_"Ha."_ She nudges him with her foot, shy yet playful. Solomon smiles and catches her ankle. Her shreds of happiness are like green leaves in a burnt field—endlessly rare and delightful to him. He moves to take her by the waist, settle her astride him, the better to enjoy all that languid slippery skin.

Then Saya murmurs:

_"Solomon… can I ask you something?"_

_"Anything you wish."_

_"What would you do… if I left?"_

_"Left? Where are you planning to run to, angel?"_

_"No, I meant_ leave _. Like a… separation."_ Her tone is gentle, even vague. But snaking deviously between that, he hears something darker, more earnest.

The water is steaming-hot, but he feels a sudden chill. He tries to keep his expression neutral. _"Why would you want to leave, Saya?"_

_"It's just…a hypothetical question. A game."_

_"I don't like this game. I'd rather play a different kind."_ He spiders his fingers along her knee, coaxing her slippery ankle against his shoulder in demonstration.

Saya tenses, but doesn't move her leg. _"Tell me."_

He stifles a sigh, but makes an effort to indulge her. _"What kind of 'leave', are we discussing? A brief parting, or…?"_

He trails off, because the very idea of her absence, emotional or corporeal, chokes him to death.

_"Could it be… both?"_

_"What do you mean? You'll leave me on a jet plane, and mysteriously vanish somewhere over the Bermuda triangle?"_

A brief giggle. _"Leave on a jet plane? Isn't that a really old song?"_

 _"It was brand new when I first heard it."_ He takes this as leeway to change the subject. _"Where did you first listen to it? I doubt you'd have time to memorize it in the war."_

Her eyes dip, hesitant. _"My father. He used to sing it sometimes. When he was cooking or fixing stuff. Kai used to call it cornball."_

_"Your… father?"_

_"Mm. The one in Okinawa?"_

Solomon's lips thin.

_Of course. That fake family of hers will never be far from her thoughts._

_Either them… or Haji._

To shake off the upsurge of jealousy, he hums the song, dredging it up out of memory. To his startled delight, Saya picks up the fading notes in her own sweet voice, cooing along. He smiles. She can sometimes, in pitch and tone, sound so much like Diva. Diva would always be singing some nonsense melody in that fiery-faerie voice of hers. She was terminally afraid of silences.

Perhaps that's why, whenever the silences between him and _Saya_ yawn too wide, Solomon feels equally frightened.

There's something so empty and deathlike to them, as if he's losing all grasp on reality.

 _"You haven't answered my question,"_ Saya remarks.

He sighs, eyes closed. Her ankle is slick and warm against his shoulder, slender enough to curve his entire palm around.

_"Saya, that's such a senseless question. Of course I wouldn't like it if you left me. I'd utterly despise it. What would I have to live for, if you weren't here?"_

_"Solomon…"_

_"I mean it. If things ever grow so terrible as that—if you ever get snatched out of my life—I'd find the highest possible skyscraper, and leap off without a second thought. They'd scrape my remains off the pavement next morning. Can you imagine the news?_ 'French businessman dies in idiotic leaping stint, splattering blood and broken limbs all across the boulevard.' "

 _"Solomon, don't…"_ He hears the unease in Saya's voice. She sometimes tells him that he has a strange way of putting things—perhaps not strange as much as too graphic. But it's only the truth, and he's never been particularly good at keeping that to himself.

 _"You… sound almost like you mean it,"_ she whispers.

_"I do. Every word."_

He hears her swallow.

He opens his eyes to regard her. Wet hair hugs the shape of her skull, dark strands spilling over her shoulders to fall across the apple of each breast. Under wet-spiked lashes, her eyes are bright, enormously expressive.

Part of him wonders how she ever managed to survive, wearing her emotions on her sleeve that way. It makes him want to hold her hand, correct and guide her. But the other part of him hopes she'll always stay this pure.

 _"Why are you asking me this, anyway?"_ he asks. _"Is this some kind of Twenty Questions game?"_

_"No, it's just… theoretical."_

_"Theoretical? Or a test?"_

She winces. He feels the subtle acceleration of her pulse in the steamy air, and knows he's caught her out. Gently, he slides her leg down into the water, so her ankle is pressed against his flank. Fingers curled around it, gripping tight.

_"Saya, look at me."_

Reluctantly, she does.

_"Why would you want to leave? Are you unhappy about something? Because you know I'd gladly give you whatever you wish for. I never want you to feel deprived or sad. My only desire is to see you happy."_

_"Solomon…"_ Her mouth is strangely rueful. _"That wasn't what I meant. It's just… you've done so much for me. Sometimes I just worry that—I don't know—this is all going to go a little too far."_

He sighs _. "There you go again, with those Morbid Thoughts."_

_"I'm serious, Solomon."_

_"So am I."_ He reaches out, beckoning as if to a kitten. _"Come here."_

Saya hesitates before slipping closer to him. He draws her in so her back is pressed to his chest, wrapping his arms and legs around her from behind. Wet skin slides on his, that delicious body that is the centerpiece of all his yearnings, his addictions, at his sole liberty to enjoy and possess.

Sometimes, holding her this way, he wonders how that spineless Haji never claimed her as his, despite all the years spent alongside her. How could any man remain oblivious to that fire and intensity residing in Saya's nature, just waiting to be unleashed?

_It's a good thing Haji never had the courage to try anything with her._

_Otherwise all this happiness would never have come my way._

Whenever he thinks about it, he holds her even tighter.

 _"Why,"_ he asks gently, chin resting on her shoulder. _"Would you think something between us would go wrong, Saya? Are you upset about something?"_

_"No..."_

_"What then?"_

_"I—"_ She averts her eyes, squirming in a way that reminds him eerily of Diva, when she was having one of her manic spells, and couldn't sit still or express herself.

And suddenly, realization blooms. Incredulous, Solomon feels his lips part.

_"Wait. You're not… worried because you're unhappy at all, are you? It's..."_

... The opposite.

He's dumbstruck. Every time he remembers this moment, he wonders if it wasn't a dream. Saya never out-and-out says anything to him. But he hears the truth in the way she curls into herself, the way her skin heats with a sudden subterranean intensity that has nothing to do with the hot bathwater.

She's asking him this question, worrying about their future, not because she's unhappy with him—but because she _isn't_. For the first time— _at last_ —she's seeing her life with him not as some kind of consolation prize, but just as… her _life_.

The room seems to spin, so everything feels dreamy and surreal. Perhaps because it's the first—the _only_ —honest talk between them, without cajolery on his part, and wariness on hers. Solomon realizes he's so unused to the mutual candor that he doesn't know how to respond. It makes him feel… out of depth? Confused?

_Afraid._

_"I just don't want anything bad to happen, Solomon,"_ Saya murmurs. _"I don't… want to end up hurting you."_

 _"Hurting_ me _?"_ He tightens his arms around her. _"Saya, the only possible way you could hurt me… is by shutting me out, or forsaking me. You know that."_

She swallows again. _"What if… it comes to a point where I have no choice?"_

 _"What do you mean?"_ He chuckles, trying to mask his unease. _"Are you tired of me already?"_

_"It's not that…"_

He lays his face alongside hers. _"What then? You think I'd ever tire of_ you _? There isn't enough time in eternity for that to happen, Saya. I love you more with every passing second."_

She smiles, but with a somber edge. _"What if… it gets to be a little to much for me?"_

 _"What? You think I'd be so hopelessly smitten that I'll end up_ driving _you away?"_ His voice is light—but the idea sends a chill through him.

 _"Taking anything to extremes…is a bad idea, Solomon_. _The war taught me that, if nothing else."_

 _"Angel, I've seen several wars in the March of so-called Progress. And I don't just mean our own. If there's one thing they taught me, it's that life shouldn't be lived halfway, but completely. Otherwise you may as well be dead."_ He drops a gentle kiss to her shoulder. " _I know_ _we've been married only a short time—but you've already become an absolute essentiality to me. I'd never do anything to hurt you. You must believe that."_

_"If you say so…"_

_"No, I mean it. In fact—"_ He breaks off, studying her. " _Wait. Now you're just teasing me._ _Look at that blush. There, I knew it."_

She giggles, and the melody thrums through him. He presses his face into her hair, her scent somehow augmenting his fears, yet at the same time soothing him. She feels wonderful, like warmth and energy and precious shimmering life. Something to be sheltered, kept safe from the ugliness of the world.

_God, I never want to lose her._

_Never never never…_

_"Would you be sorry, if you had to end up leaving me?"_ The question slips suddenly from his lips.

Saya tenses, as if she's holding her breath. Turning, she presses her lips against the ledge of his collarbone, mouthing something. He wants to ask what she said, but then her little fangs gnaw at the hollow beneath his jaw. Gently, then, upon his gasp, harder. Little fingers go adventuring at the same time, slipping between them to curl around that one part of him that's been growing increasingly more agitated since she settled against him.

Surprising to realize he'd been the one to teach her so much about sex. With him, _Diva_ was the one who'd molded him in so much. But it seems fitting now; he practiced to perfection on Diva, as if tailor-made to later serve her twin, whose entire being is a visceral echo of his late Queen's.

But unlike Diva, who was beyond all reach, he'll _never_ allow Saya to slip away. Not as long as he lives.

It's a long time before he remembers the question he asked her. Longer still, when he realizes what she said to him.

Pressing her lips to his skin, she'd closed her eyes and whispered… _Yes._

_Wake up._

Images blur and distort, a whirling _aegri somnia_. He surfaces through blackness, the flashback still curdling each thought. Sees, as if superimposed, the apartment in Prague. Blood splattering the walls, furniture crumpled like paper-planes. Outside, traffic hums. His mind slides effortlessly across the building. He can taste the cold air outside, hear the crunch of tires from cars, the swishing of wind in trees.

A rich crimson carpet leading to the door undulates in a sensual wave, a steady, winding stream of blood.

He sees a girl standing at the edge, swaddled in black furs.

_Saya?_

She turns her head, and her eyes are _horrific_. One red, one blue. Like a cat's.

_Diva?_

_Saya?_

Looking closer, he sees that her fur coat is glistening. Soaked in wine?

No. _Blood_.

Blood drips from the coat's edges, speckling the carpet in wet lines. Which suddenly, inexplicably, turn into scarlet snakes, hissing and slithering away.

The girl—neither Saya or Diva—sighs mournfully. Her pale hand slips out between the furs, waving at him.

 _Goodbye_.

" _Don't—please don't go."_ Solomon's words run together, heavy and slurred. There seems to be an echo somewhere. He lurches for the girl, wanting to catch her, ask who she is.

She sighs again, and, lifting her arms, lets the coat drop. The wet material hits the red carpet with a dull _squelch_. And Solomon realizes, aghast, that the carpet isn't red at all—but drenched in _blood_. Every square inch. Blood that coalesces into more serpents. Glimmering, undulating across the floor, an entire slippery _ocean_ of them.

But that doesn't terrify him so much as the girl.

She's naked under the fur coat. Whole body, top to toe, stained in red.

From her own blood.

It seeps from ragged open wounds on her flesh. Bites, gashes, everywhere he looks. Her belly is a fertile orb, striped in slashings.

Slashings… from his own hands.

Jerkily, Solomon raises his palms, stares at the blood coating them. Embedded into his fingerprints, blackening his nails. Just like in the Great War.

_I did this._

_It was_ me _._

The girl— _his Saya_ —sighs inconsolably.

Again, she waves in goodbye.

Solomon's throat tightens.

_Oh God_

_This can't be happening._

_"I told you,"_ she breathes, and tears stream from her eyes, turning to diamond-bright snowflakes that shimmer away. _"Wake up."_

She lurches then, collapsing boneless into the writhing mass of snakes. Covered, roped down, letting them swarm all over her, coiling and glittering, until she's enveloped head to toe. Swallowed alive.

An eyeblink, and she vanishes from sight.

Bile gushes up Solomon's throat.

_No._

_This can't be happening._

_Wake up._

_I have to wake up._

He screams. Screams and screams, and the world splatters to red.

* * *

In the pale dawn light, she lies on the wet carpet. Whole body an ache. Her wounds heal slowly, half from the blood she's lost, half from the decreased potency in what little that's left.

_You're going to go into labor soon._

_Get up, Saya. Please get up._

The voice is like Haji's.

She wants to obey, but her limbs feel weak. If anyone ever asked her, how she managed to knock Solomon out, she wouldn't remember a thing.

Except that she did.

He lies motionless beside her now. So stuck full of hypodermic needles, in the neck, arms, belly, chest, that he resembles a porcupine. He'd been _impossible_ to take down, which surprised her. Shouldn't have, given he was her sister's Chevalier.

She remembers how difficult it was to defeat Phantom and James; the scores of energy and determination she'd expended in killing them.

But they were _nothing_ compared to this.

She'd never loved those men. Never lived with them, borne their weight against her flesh or their children in her womb. The impediment in fighting Solomon hadn't been _his_ strength—but in that of her own sentiment.

Nothing was simple where _he_ was concerned.

He's sprawled out on the carpet now. Clothes drenched in blood, coils of sweat-soaked hair falling across his forehead. But beneath that, his face is sweet in repose, lips parted, eyes moving gently behind closed lids.

He seems asleep, a little boy exhausted after a trauma.

Saya's lies curved against him, like she used to when they'd be together in bed. Can't understand why. After how he brutalized her, she should be shrinking from his touch.

Perhaps it's instinct. The animal comfort of huddling to someone familiar, when everything else seems to be crashing to madness. Like little children alone at home, fighting over what to watch on television—only to cling to each other in fright when the lights go out.

_Get up, Saya._

The voice, so much like Haji's, bears momentum.

She grits her teeth, rising. Every muscle screams in protest, but she ignores it. Mind detached from her body, floating untethered in a post-disaster numbness. Senseless, drugged, half-dead.

Kneeling by Solomon, she gently draws each tranquilizer needle from his skin. First, second, fourth… she loses count after ten. Each punctured spot drools a thin line of blood. Without realizing it, Saya leans in, licking it away. Her own body is so starved for vitamins that her instincts are asserting her to feed however she can.

Solomon stirs, murmuring, then subsides. She wonders what he's dreaming about.

_Do Chevaliers dream at all?_

She'd never thought to ask him.

She understands, dimly, that those blood-packs she'd fed Solomon were drugged. Experimental steroids; some sort of amphetamine; she has no clue.

Only knows that they turned her husband into a ravening monster.

Regret chokes her. This must've been how Haji felt, when he let Red Shield inject her with his blood to unleash the Vietnam massacre.

_I'm so sorry, Solomon…_

She wants to cry, but her eyes are parched. Dried up as something moldering in a tomb.

Instead, as if to compensate, a tiny tear escapes from the corner of Solomon's closed eye. It rolls in a shiny line down his cheek, where she catches it with a finger and lifts it to her mouth.

It tastes so salty. A wild hunger seizes her; her fangs descend, itching to sink into his throat.

_No._

_You have to get out of here._

_Otherwise you're going to drain and kill him._

Moving like a rusted machine, she staggers to her room. She wants to take a bath. The need, rising out of nowhere, is sudden and overwhelming. There's a lot to be done—but she _must_ take a bath. Every inch of her feels grimy, smirched in guilt and spume.

Her clothes are crusted in dried blood; taking them off is impossible. She gets out a pair of scissor from her sewing kit, cutting through her sleeves and dried buttons. Lets each garment fall where it will, stiff as cardboard. Once immersed in the tub, her wounds turn the water a delicate rose. Still bleeding, but slowly, slowly, closing up.

_Good._

She dresses in a pair of black slacks and a loose fullsleeve sweater. Both are one size too large, but her belly is so swollen that they fit perfectly. She remembers when Solomon first got them for her. They'd seemed too big then, sleeves hanging past her fingers, trousers extending beyond her toes.

She remembers stuffing a pillow under the sweater and examining herself in the mirror, to see how she'd look in a few months. The massive would-be belly had seemed grotesque on her frame, repulsive.

Solomon had just chuckled and put his arms around her. _"The outfit's a little oversized, granted. But I don't want you feeling uncomfortable when you're in your final trimester_. _Lets leave the Couture to those who aren't carrying such an important package, right?"_

She'd smiled at that, at how unswerving his adoration for her could be. His sweetness, his ever-renewing delight in her.

_Stop thinking about that._

_Otherwise you'll never have the strength to leave him._

It takes more than blind adoration to make a marriage last. It takes trust, understanding—none of which she and Solomon share. They're like two forts positioned side-by-side, waving white flags in superficial surrender. Unable to see into each other—or outside of themselves.

Entering Solomon's room is like stepping into an alternate dimension. Everything is so neat and glossy, almost unreal. She rummages through his drawers and cupboards. Snowy folds of underwear, starched shirts in hangers, coats in plastic wrappings. She finds his wallet in a daguerreotype case, along with three different credit cards.

Takes enough to get her plane tickets and a taxi to the airport.

Moving around the room, she plans her journey mechanically. Whatever flight she catches will stop over at the Charles de Gaulle in Paris, before heading over to Okinawa. It's going to be a long trip.

Pressing a hand to her belly, she prays her babies will stay inside until she gets there.

She stuffs her little belongings into a carry-on, taking nothing but what she came to Solomon with. But instead of exiting the flat, she finds herself, like a felon craving punishment, drawn back to the dining room.

To Solomon.

He's still sprawled on his side. Arms stretched out before him, body curled slightly as if in pain. In the dim light, his pale skin seems to glow. He looks serene, sweet. Far younger than he's ever looked in real life.

Hesitant, Saya kneels beside him, leaning in to press a small, emotionally-confused kiss on his forehead. His skin is sticky with drying blood.

Outside the building, a siren wails.

Solomon's eyes flicker open.

 _"Don't,"_ he gasps.

Saya jerks back. "S-Solomon—"

He tries to lift his head, but can't. His eyes are hazy, unfocused; he stares, but doesn't seem to see her.

"Don't go…"

"Solomon—I'm sorry. I just can't stay with you. I have to go."

"Don't—please don't—"

"I'm sorry—" She tries to get up, but he seizes her ankle, dragging her back.

Saya hits her aching tailbone with an _oof_. Solomon's grip is tight, violent; his whole body seems to ripple with manic energy.

"Don't—I _won't_ let you—"

"Solomon, _please_ —" Her heart hammers when he yanks her closer. She twists, struggling to escape.

A tranquilizer hypodermic lies before her, glinting in the dim light. Snatching it up, she jerks around and stabs Solomon in the neck.

The impact is dead-on. She presses the piston, fluid spurting into his bloodstream. Solomon gasps, face contorting. His fingers tighten on her ankle, then slacken. The drug spreads through his body like ripples across a still pond.

But his eyes remain locked on her's.

"Don't. Don't go."

He says it twice. Then he loses consciousness.

Saya immediately yanks her leg free. She wonders how many chemicals a Chevalier can endure, before suffering a fatal reaction.

_Don't think about that. The more you worry about him, the lesser you'll want to leave._

_You'll just end trapped with him again._

The voice has a strength to it, a banked urgency. She obeys it without question. Her body seems to be running on autopilot, too far away for remorse to catch up with her.

In the lounge, she leaves her wedding ring on the table, atop a folded note that reads, simply, _I'm sorry._ Slips on a long black fur-collared coat to disguise her belly, and dark glasses to hide her face.

Fifteen minutes later, she's in a cab heading for the airport.

Hands splayed on her stomach, she prays for the strength to endure the journey. She prays that her babies will stay inside until she's reached Okinawa, and that they'll be born healthy and intact. Prays that Solomon will wake up unharmed—but not in time to intercept her.

And most of all she prays that wherever Haji is, he'll find it in him to forgive her.

The bloodstone is a small point of reassurance, clenched in her fist. Mouth salty with traces of Solomon's blood, and tears she never felt herself shed.

* * *


	27. Slippery Slope

Eyes like absinthe and swirls of blond hair. Kisses a stupefying salvo. Her mind sizzles out of control. Terror flickers at its edges.

This is wrong.

The moment feels like an absent void it time. Something that doesn't make sense and shouldn't be happening.

Except when it _is_.

 _"I'm sorry."_ She tries to untangle herself from Solomon's arms. _"I-I shouldn't be doing this. I have to go…"_

Solomon draws back to regard her. Hair tousled, lips swollen from kissing. His eyes are catlike in the gold lamplight.

_"Do you want to stop?"_

She shivers as his warm breath ripples across her skin. The tingling sting of his teeth is still fresh on her neck.

She should be shoving him off, running out the door without looking back.

But she can't _move_.

It all started so harmlessly. That day, Haji had left with David and Lewis on a Red Shield project. A clean-up operation in Norway, where a Chiropteran nest had sprouted up. Saya's presence wasn't required: Red Shield's men, with her Chevalier, could handle the situation.

Besides. She was supposed to be free of that now.

Saya told herself to be grateful. This final reprieve was what she'd struggled and fought so hard for. But that didn't explain why she always felt so out of place. There was no more _purpose_ to inject in her existence. Her friends and family had their own lives. And she wasn't the epicenter of any of them.

Wasn't at the epicenter of _anything_ anymore.

She wasn't used to this. To feeling extraneous, aimless. Her years in the war had distilled all her feelings to a few overpowering emotions. She no longer felt capable of paltry pastimes like shopping, buying DVDs, dishwashing and groceries. She didn't want to sail out and make new friends. She didn't want to take up a new hobby.

Everything felt so drab, monotonous. Normalcy just didn't mesh with her matrix anymore.

No one had told her life would be like this. The wrenching, petty, minute-to-minute annoyance of it. On and on for eternity, and suddenly her main pursuits were working all day, waiting tables and doing laundry? She remembered she'd once dreamt of going back to Okinawa, living as a normal girl. But now… now nothing felt the same.

Whatever she'd lost to the war could never be replaced.

Her apathy felt shameful, almost like a personal failure. She wasn't supposed to be like this. This… _deadness_ wasn't what she'd forsaken the solace of suicide for.

It wasn't something she could confide to her family. The sense that nothing was important anymore—that she couldn't _make herself_ see anything as important. She felt like a ghost in the drama of her own life. Watching everything play out as if it had nothing to do with her, endlessly isolated from all emotion.

Half-dead, almost.

When the guilt was really bad, she'd tell Haji about it. Loyal patient Haji. He always listened, always made everything easier for her. In his arms, kissing and talking to him, everything started to make sense. She could almost believe, looking at his eyes, that things would get better soon.

But when she was alone, memories of the war were crouched in wait, waiting to devour her.

Which was how she'd stumbled into Solomon's arms.

Their first evening out was so innocent. At least, she told herself it was. Haji was on a Red Shield clean-up in Norway. She'd stayed behind, trying not to feel left out of the loop. She wished David and the others would still include her in their work. But since her Awakening, everyone was handling her so gingerly.

Like she was cracked inside, and the slightest jolt could shatter her.

She knew her family were just being protective. But their constant scrutiny was _frustrating_. Everyone always looked at her with a point of fear in their eyes. Like she was poised on a cliff, ready to plunge. Always hovering around her, yet somehow shutting her out too. She didn't want their constant intrusions, didn't need to be treated like a lunatic.

She wanted—god, she didn't _know_ what she wanted. She just wanted to shut her mind off, to get away from it all.

Just… escape herself.

She'd been at Omoro that evening, when Solomon dropped in. He was in the neighborhood. Wanted to see how she and her nieces were doing. She still remembered how he'd looked, standing at the door. The rain outside had sprinkled bright droplets in his hair. He'd smelled of airy cologne and a hint of ozone. Ethereal and fresh.

 _Different_.

He was quick to note her gloomy mood. He suggested that she and her nieces go out with him, have a little fun. There was a gorgeous ice-sculpture display downtown. Wouldn't it be nice to see what it was about?

Saya was reluctant—but really, what was the harm? Solomon had been interacting with her family, with Red Shield, ever since her Long Sleep. He'd saved her more than once in the war—he'd nearly died because of her.

She could trust him.

Besides, everyone was always haranguing her to _take interest in her life again_. If she couldn't go see some sculptures with a man who'd saved her life, what was the _point_ of living?

That was how it started. Those glittering ice-sculptures were her undoing.

She hadn't counted on how _freeing_ Solomon's company would feel. His face filled her with a kaleidoscope of emotions, both familiar and unexpected. Flashed her back to that man she'd met in the Lycee ball, all glowing smiles and sun-streaked hair. The same one who'd knelt to kiss her hand, that night he helped her defeat James.

_Whenever you need me, just call my name._

It was almost like meeting him all over again, touching him with new skin.

She'd been with no one but Haji all these years. As of yet, they hadn't even consummated their strange new relationship. Half decorum from the era they'd lived in, half stagnation on Saya's part. She loved Haji, trusted him completely. But she didn't understand why she couldn't drop the other shoe, accept him in her bed.

It was only later that it dawned that her hesitation was nothing but _fear_.

Not fear of physical intimacy. Just fear of growing too involved, letting herself feel too much.

Her self-flagellating soul smelt punishment in every pleasure, every softness. Each time she started to relax with Haji, let go, it was always accompanied by some ugly flashback that ruined everything. At times she'd find herself crying in the middle of feeling perfectly content, while kissing or talking to him.

She didn't understand what was wrong with her. But Haji seemed to know. Each time, he'd hold her and say nothing.

They shared no forecast beyond the day, made no plans for tomorrow. Their love was discussed in fleeting whispers and soft glances, a myriad of salty kisses in darkened corners, touches that soothed and tantalized, but never pushed too far. And in the eternal transience of his presence, his eyes and hands like a rejuvenating balm, she could feel perfectly alive.

But in his absence, life was _exactly_ what she wanted to escape.

And in Solomon, that oblivion seemed exemplified.

A great deal of their courtship was conducted in Haji's absence. Whenever Saya was depressed and alone, Solomon would drop by, cajole her out of her funk. He took her to polo games and bonfires, to chaotic carnivals and smoky Jazz clubs. Venues where Saya could drown in the human tumult for a few hours, forget everything else.

She told herself their outings meant nothing. She knew how Solomon felt about her, but she missed no opportunity to gently remind him that they could only be friends. She was in love with Haji. Nothing could change that.

But Solomon would only smile his entrancing smile, like he knew something she didn't.

Occasionally, he'd invite her to his numerous social engagements, to classical orchestras and vintage exhibitions. If she didn't have a suitable dress for the event, he'd buy one for her, and that was that. He took an unabashed delight in lavishing her with trinkets. Chocolates, charms, bracelets. Boots and teddy-bears. At first, she tried firmly to refuse, but he'd tease her until she had no choice but to accept.

 _I buy these things for your nieces all the time, Saya_. _Surely I'm allowed to spoil you too._

_Solomon…We both know I'm not my nieces._

_Well, you are family. We're all related by blood, one way or another. That means I'm free to indulge you._

She managed a smile. _Don't be such a spendthrift, Solomon. Otherwise it's the only thing women will want you for._

Solomon smirked. _That's fine. Who on earth would want me for my looks?_

The war didn't fade from her memory. Indeed, when she wasn't with Haji, the remorse choked her every minute. Most nights, she couldn't sleep, _breathe_ , without thinking about Vietnam or Diva, her father and Riku.

But in Haji's absence, she had something to look forward to now. Her meetings with Solomon.

She enjoyed the giddy butterfly of his presence. Enjoyed the way he treated her—drinking in her every word and gesture, plying her with unfamiliar curlicues of glances and compliments. But he was never aggressive or insistent with her: if anything he was lighthearted, easygoing. The charming young man she'd danced with at the Lycee ball.

In his regard, she could sink like into an opiate. Almost pretend she was someone else—someone desirable, and feminine, who hadn't slaughtered thousands in a century-long war.

Soon it grew into a pattern. On weekends, on spare afternoons, Solomon would whisk her off for a ride, lunch, a walk. They didn't talk about the past. Their discussions revolved around Solomon's recent travels, about places Saya could visit, or anecdotes from her family. Once, she lent him a favorite book from her Zoo days, and Solomon liked it so much he memorized it and could recite certain passages word-for-word. Another time, he bought her cinnabons on the way home, and she let him kiss a smudge of icing sugar from her lips.

A just-friends kiss. That's all.

Except she only let her _friends_ kiss her on the cheek.

The days looped into a spiral. When each outing ended, she'd find it harder to say goodbye. Find herself looking more forward to the next time. In conversations, she'd start mentioning his name more often. By herself, she'd recall little things about him. How he squinched his face up when the sun was too bright. The way he drew his lower-lip between his teeth when he was thinking about something. The way he smiled at her, as if her face was the only one for him to gaze upon, the only that existed.

Didn't realize what a slippery slope she was tumbling down. Not until too late.

Truthfully, her excitement, her omnipresent desire for him, should have felt like cheating. A double-cross of Haji, her duty. _Herself_. Except her attraction to Solomon wasn't simply instinct. She had always been a dunce in matters of the heart, but she'd gleaned that much. Nor was she attracted to him because of his superficial charms.

It was _him_.

His history and sacrifices. Everything he'd done for her in the war. His checkered morality stirred her. As did his hard-won, perilous position now, with her family, with Red Shield, with her. He wasn't a saint. But he wasn't—completely—a monster. She couldn't paint him black-or-white, like her enemies and allies.

He fit a niche, the strange, complex space that was Saya's life, in ways that were impossible to define.

Except she was buying into the lust-soaked, love-sick victim's mindset, and it was a warning. More than that. _Worse_.

In retrospect, the signs were so clear. When she grew secretive about their meetings, it was obvious her feelings were tangling out of focus. Conversations and looks between her and Solomon started getting longer, more intense. If Kai or the others asked about their outings, she'd answer evasively, avert her eyes. She started contriving excuses to spend more time with him. She'd start to wish, in lonely moments, that he were there to distract her.

And on the night Haji finally confronted her, everything swooped out of control.

_"Saya, is there something happening between you and Solomon?"_

She froze, chopsticks poised in the air, noodles dangling.

Haji was leaning on his usual spot by the wall, watching her. He'd asked the question gently, yet his words slammed her to the ground.

_"Wh-what? Why would you say that—"_

_"Just…you've been spending so much time with him. I am concerned about whether—"_

She set the chopsticks down, strangely defensive. _"Just because I'm spending time with Solomon, you assumed I was involved with him?"_

_"No, Saya. That isn't what I meant. I was only—"_

_"You know, it isn't my fault you keep abandoning me for those stupid Red Shield operations. Solomon is the only one who spends time with me when you're gone."_

Haji faltered. " _Saya, those Red Shield's tasks are only to ensure that the Chiropterans are wiped out._ _You know it as well as I do."_

 _"I_ do _know."_ She fought the urge to snap. _"But everyone acts like I've got nothing to_ do _with it anymore. You don't even_ tell _me about these Chiropteran nests, or where they are anymore, Haji."_

_"Saya, we only did that because we weren't sure you needed continuous reminders of the war. But please… if you feel like we are excluding you, it isn't so. We just want you to recover—"_

_"That's just it! You keep acting like my memories will 'get better' soon. Except I know they're never going to go away at all! Stop patronizing me like they're just a bad flu I've caught!"_

_"Saya. You shouldn't say that. You know you're perfectly free to join us on these operations. But you've never given any indication of wanting to—"_

_"Because I_ don't _. You_ know _that! The war's_ over _and I don't want to go back to that time again!"_

_"Well, then why—"_

_"It's not_ about _the Red Shield's operations! It's not about_ anything _! Just—"_ A jerky gesture, taking in the piles of dishes in the sink, the stack of bills pinned to the table, that stupid tap that kept dripping water because she didn't care enough to fix it and those tiny chinks that had formed on the walls which she was supposed to plaster over but _didn't_ because it was _just a stupid wall_ and why did it _matter_? Why did _anything_ in this life matter?

She didn't even feel like she was really _here_.

 _"I just don't feel like my life's going_ anywhere _, Haji! I just—I can't_ care _enough for it to go anywhere! I just want everything to stop! I just want to completely start over! None of this is working out for me!"_

 _"Saya…"_ Haji's eyes were gentle. _"You are just having a readjustment problem. You shouldn't be so hard on yourself._ _You just need time to—"_

 _"Time to what? Recuperate? You keep_ saying _that—but I'm so sick of hearing it! It doesn't change anything! I'm still as miserable as I ever was!"_

Haji froze, staring at her. _"Saya…"_

She knew she should calm down, but she was too angry. All these weeks of stymied frustration seemed to erupt without warning. Like a car tumbling end-over-end down a cliff, shattered glass and blood spiraling in its wake.

 _"Just_ stop _telling me how I'm supposed to feel, Haji! You—and—Kai, and Julia, and David, and_ everyone _! Stop treating me like I'm an incompetent child! Don't you know that even if you avoid talking about the war, I'll_ always _remember it? It's never going to go away! At least with Solomon, I don't have to think about that! At least he doesn't treat me like I'm broken up inside!"_

_"Saya, Kai and the others are simply worried about you. We just want you to get better so that—"_

She shot abruptly to her feet, the chair toppling backwards. " _Stop saying that! Stop_ _making it sound like I need fixing! I don't need any of your help!"_

Haji seemed to know he should stop—but in his quiet way, he could be just as stubborn as she. _"Saya, you may feel as though we are smothering you, but we have only your best interests at heart. I'm... not certain I can say the same of Solomon."_

_"What?"_

_"Don't you think he is taking some advantage of the vulnerable state you are in? That he might be—"_

She cut him off with an upraised hand. _"Let me make one thing clear to you, Haji. Just because you don't trust Solomon, doesn't mean I share your opinion. He's saved my life, just like you have, and I'm free to spend time with him if I want to. It's not your place to tell me what I can't do, and it never was!"_

Haji's eyes widened, then narrowed. For a moment he looked like he might shout at her. Instead, he averted his face.

_"If that is what you wish."_

He exited like a gust of wind, and she couldn't feel him in the house anymore.

When he was gone, rage immediately melted to guilt. She'd had no right to explode at him. It was true; he and the others were buffering her from so much lately. But they were only doing it out of love. Given how fragile she'd been lately, they didn't want her enduring anything worse.

And in some ways, Haji was right to worry about Solomon.

Her Chevalier wasn't prone to jealous displays. But tiny hints gave away the intensity of his feelings, like a thin lid on an underground wellspring.

Instead of shouting at him, she should've reassured him that he had nothing to fear. He was the only person for her. Always would be.

But why hadn't she?

She got ready for bed, prepared for him to return. These nights, she couldn't sleep unless he was lying beside her. Often, she drifted off with her head pillowed into his shoulder, while Haji thumbed one-handed through a book, his heartbeat soothing as her cool linen sheets.

Others may have viewed this as an unfair tease, but Saya could trust Haji with her life. He never acted on anything, unless it was with her permission in mind. This is what she loved so much about him _—_ and silently deplored. Because, as in all else, during their physical games, he always waited for _her_ instructions, _her_ lead.

And since the war, she didn't want to lead in _anything_ anymore.

Sometimes, she just wished he'd take the initiative for her, leave her free to shut her mind off. Let go.

The hours slipped by. She finished dinner, washed up, and fixed herself some cocoa. But when Haji didn't return, misgiving bloomed. It was usual, even guaranteed, that if they quarreled, he'd still come back by dawn. It wasn't the first time since her Awakening that they'd had this sort of argument. And in each case, she'd admit she was always the precipitator.

Haji, like her family, just wanted to help her get better. And Saya, in her self-loathing, just kept pushing him away.

One a.m. and her Chevalier was still missing. Saya camped out by the television, waiting for him to get back. Wanting to apologize, as soon as he stepped through the door. But as the minutes ticked by, her unease mounted.

_Why hasn't he come back yet?_

She lost track of the black-and-white movie she was watching. Her eyes kept shifting to the clock beside her. When the film ended, the heroine's eyes filling with tears of renunciation as the hero sailed beyond the horizon, Saya switched the TV off.

The luminous dial said it was three a.m. Haji was never gone _this_ long before.

_Could he have decided to—?_

No. She was being paranoid. If she waited another half-hour, he would return.

The half-hour melted to two. Then three. At the cusp of dawn, Haji still hadn't arrived. Saya considered calling Kai, telling him what had happened. But Kai was never an objective listener. He'd just side with her in his gruff protective way, so she didn't feel like the one at fault.

Which she was.

Slipping into coat and shoes, Saya headed to find Haji. Outside, it was raining. Not stormy rain—just a dispiriting icy drizzle. Walking the streets, she kept her eyes peeled for her Chevalier. In every corner, she gently called his name. Whispered it through dark alleyways and winding avenues. She checked the seaside, the school district, the parks and industrial areas. Craned her neck to the tops of the buildings, hoping to spot his familiar figure amid the signboards.

Nothing.

_Where is he?_

Walking the wet streets, she saw puddles and shadows everywhere. Sometimes she thought she heard his voice. But it was just the patter of rain, or wind whispering in trees. Wandering patrolmen, listless vagrants, seemed to bear his shape. Shadows dashed on walls formed his silhouette.

She saw him everywhere she looked. Which was nowhere.

Exhausted, Saya settled at last on the damp pavement. She didn't know what part of town she was in anymore. Didn't care.

Regret washed like rain over her; it was like those split-seconds during the war, when the Chiropteran's fangs dug too close to her neck, and a voice inside, half-enervated, half-exhilarated, would ask:

_Is this the last time?_

Maybe, in Haji's case, it _was_.

She'd always seen his patience for her as infinite. It hadn't occurred to her, until now, that he might have a breaking point. But should she be surprised?

In some ways, Haji should've crossed that point _long_ ago.

Eyes closed, Saya tipped her face to the rain. Cool drops slid down her face, mixing with the warm ones from her eyes, until everything became a blur.

After everything Haji had done for her, all she did was hurt him. For all his support and devotion, she was always thankless in return. Their relationship consisted of her taking everything he gave, with nothing but agony as his reward.

_Please come back._

_I'm sorry I was so terrible to you. I'm a terrible friend and a terrible person, I keep doing everything wrong, my whole_ life _is nothing but wrong, and whenever you try to console me, I just hate myself more, because that's when I_ know _I don't deserve you most._

_But then…_

_Then you kiss me, and it doesn't matter._

_When I'm with you, I feel almost like I can be okay again …_

She whispered it into the pelting rain, as if bargaining with some divine force. But there was no answer.

She thought, vaguely, of the high cliffs by the Miyagusuku tomb. Those jagged rocks and crashing waves. She half-wanted to go there and dash herself on them. Erase all this insurmountable failure and shame.

Would the height be sufficient to kill a Chiropteran?

A hand tapped her shoulder. She jerked.

Solomon was leaning over her, hair hanging in dripping coils over startled eyes.

_"I wasn't sure it was you, until I drove back to check. What are you doing out here at this hour? Where's Haji?"_

Saya stared, unable to answer.

Everything that followed, what she said to him, the ride her gave her to his hotel, was a blur. She had vague recollections of showering in his bathroom, tears spilling into the steamy air. Borrowing his fluffy white robe, wrapping it tight while her soaked clothes tumbled in the dryer.

Solomon gently hustled her onto a chaise in the lounge. Saya watched, bleary and muddled, as he weaved around the polished kitchen space, fixing her something to drink. She'd never seen him in a domestic sphere before. But unlike Haji, who could switch seamlessly from selecting sheet music to changing a lightbulb, it looked odd on him. He just seemed like one of those people who snapped their fingers and got things done for them.

He poured milk in a mug, added sugar and cocoa, popped it in a microwave, all with easy meticulousness. Which was even odder, considering she knew he didn't eat or drink.

Had he liked to, before becoming a Chevalier? Or had he just garnered practice from bringing human women home on rainy nights and fixing them warm drinks?

She flushed at the thought.

_"Your face is red, Saya. What embarrassing ideas are you entertaining?"_

Solomon was right before her, bearing a steaming mug of cocoa.

_"N-nothing. Just… thank you for the ride. As soon as my clothes are dry, I'll head back home, if it's okay."_

_"That's perfectly all right. I can drop you there myself."_

_"No, please. I wouldn't want to be a bother. You might be expecting company, or—"_

_"Company? At five in the morning?"_ He chuckled. _"Come now. I'm hardly_ that _nocturnal anymore."_

It made her wonder, how he'd spent his nights when he was Diva's Chevalier. But it wasn't the kind of thing she could ask.

 _"I haven't poisoned that, you know,"_ Solomon indicated to her untouched cocoa. _"You're free to take a sip. I would give you some blood, but you don't take that in a glass, do you?"_

Saya shook her head.

 _"Well, have a little at least. You'll feel better."_ He quirked his lips as if in a joke. " _It's not spiked either, if that's what you're worried about."_

_"Spiked?"_

His eyebrows floated to his hairline. _"Dear God. I may_ _have a problem"_

His tone was amused, but it wasn't in an unkind way. His presence, his voice, felt so familiar to her. Mechanically, she sipped from the mug. The cocoa was rich and sweet, but she barely tasted it. Her misery turned everything viscid.

Solomon frowned. _"Saya, what's the matter? You look like one of Nathan's tragedy masks."_

_"Hm?"_

His gaze, though gentle, pierced her. _"Your eyes are bloodshot. You were crying in the shower, weren't you?"_

_"Solomon—"_

_"Did something happen? You didn't have a fight with Haji, did you?"_

That was all it took.

Suddenly she was seized by a jag of wild tears. Trying to explain what had happened, knowing it really wasn't Solomon's business or his problem—except who else could she _tell_? She tried to explain to him, what Haji had said, how she'd answered. Tried to tell him how hard it was, coming out of the war, knowing she'd caused so much death. Her conscience seemed to bog her down every moment. She couldn't breathe easy without ever remembering what she'd done. And her family and friends, always hovering around her. Brimming with love, yet unable to leave her be as she wanted them to, _understand_ her as she needed them to. Her life was going nowhere, and she didn't even _care_ enough to change it. Everything was pointless, ruined.

Solomon listened without interrupting. A few times, she could feel him struggling to follow her train of thought, interject. But he let her speak without comment. And when she was done, struggling for air between hiccoughs, he just touched her tear-streaked cheek with a gentle palm.

His face was knit with genuine sadness. _"Saya… I'm so sorry. I didn't realize—"_

She never knew what he was going to say next.

Because in the next breath, her lips met his.

_That._

_That_ was what she'd never forgive herself for. Whatever Solomon's intentions were for her that night, _he_ wasn't the one to initiate her betrayal.

In this, as in all else, it was _her_ fault.

His lips were softer than Haji's. Warmer, more pliant. His mouth, when it opened on hers, had a hot tangy taste. Piquant but far from unpleasant.

Then his tongue slipped against hers in an iridescent sweep. All thought fizzling out.

The last thing she saw, in her mind's eye, were those jagged rocks by the Miyagusuku tomb. Rising up as if to shatter her.

A kiss was all it took. Everything else it progressed to, precipitated, was all because of a kiss. It was almost fitting. A kiss from her had transformed Haji into a Chevalier. A kiss from Haji had sizzled her psyche awake during her amnesia. A kiss had, at the MET, drawn her from death into the slipstream of life.

And of course, a kiss would pull her into oblivion too.

Now that they were touching, it was like some axis to reality shattered. The room seemed to pivot, so nothing felt real to her. She vaguely recalled Solomon settling beside her on the chaise, drawing her closer to the bestowal of his scorched absorbing mouth, his coaxing possessive hands. His lips felt both alien and strangely welcome against hers. Each contact, each breath, vibrated chaos and intimacy.

Her hands sank into his hair. Thick like Haji's, but silkier, surprisingly crisp. Fingers tingling with the sudden hungry urge to squeeze, explore. She pressed her palm along his shoulder, over the voluptuous swell of one bicep. Shirt-fabric smooth and expensive to the touch, but warmed by the flesh beneath. Everything about him, so warm.

Different.

_Wrong. This is wrong._

_I shouldn't be doing this._

Caught up in the fervid concentration of lips and tongues, she wasn't sure how the minutes ticked by. Wasn't sure how she and Solomon moved, with such louche smoothness, to the threshold she'd only ever allowed _Haji_. But at some point, he'd coaxed her to sprawl back across the couch. His first sweet kisses had melted into others more devouring. Yet she could feel, in the faint tremors rising and dying across his musculature, his efforts to stay gentle.

To not scare her off.

Pressing her body to his, mouths together, he trailed his hands carefully up and down her spine. Even through the fuzzy fabric of her robe, each touch drew paths of brightness across her skin. Dazed, she felt herself mirroring the movement of his hands. Tracing the powdery undulant sweep of his shirt-back, the two sharp blades, tangling her fingers in his hair.

 _"Saya."_ He breathed it against her lips. A dark incantation. _"Saya."_

The call resonated through her overheating body. Made her heart skip, with the kind of paralyzed thrill that is terror in disguise _—_ that feeling of stepping through darkness and into empty air.

Bit by bit, Solomon covered her, encircling her with an arm, legs tangling. At a better angle to feed on her mouth, to dot kisses across her face, worshiping in hot bites up and down her neck while his reconnaissant fingers undid the tie on her robe and tugged it open.

She should have stopped him. But her thoughts were a blur of white-noise, and her skin burned furiously, stung with disorientation and lust and the dizzying feel of Solomon's mouth, his touch.

Drawing a breath, he hovered over her, muted lamplight spilling out behind him, catching the gold tints in his hair. Turning him into a silhouette. He'd left off kissing and was just looking at her. Heavy-eyed. Absorbed.

Abruptly conscious of her nudity, Saya flushed. She felt more than exposed in his gaze. She felt _transparent_. It was as if he could see everything she was feeling.

Everything she was hiding.

Before she could cover herself, he caught her wrists. Pressed them up, over her head, as if arranging her for an erotic photograph.

Memorizing her in a long mental snapshot.

 _"I forgot,"_ he breathed.

 _"Wh-what?"_ She was blotched in blushes; pink chameleon patterns blooming across her skin.

Solomon's eyes glowed red. _"I forgot how delicious you were."_ Smiling, he leaned in to brush his lips against hers. His words were both warning and promise. _"I'm going to eat every bit of you."_

_"Solomon, I—"_

She couldn't finish. From looming over her, he was suddenly covering her, all around her. Kisses sharp and tasty as bites, defined only by her gasps. Heavy and appreciative, his hands covered her breasts. He massaged them gently, the hot palm-prints seeming to melt through her skin. Pinched the nipples playfully between his fingers, rolling them round and round. The sensation pulsed across her body's meridians, making her squirm and cry out against his mouth, sounds of warning or delight, she didn't even know which.

Only Haji had ever touched her this way. Only with Haji was the pleasure layered over something she always craved but could never put a name to. A strange floating serenity, sexual, yet beyond sex.

Whereas with Solomon the differentiation was the kind of stark gradation of light into darkness. Leaving her strung-out like a junkie, shivering and warped and liquid at her core.

_What's wrong with me?_

Her pulse tripped, disorientation mixed with shame. She tried to speak, but Solomon was already dipping to taste her. Dusting wet gnawing kisses from her throat to her collarbones, her shoulders to her breasts. He dared to take one nipple in his teeth, tugging and then suckling until Saya mewled and tossed her head on the couch cushions.

Her entire body felt wrong, like someone had borrowed it without her consent. Caught in the grip of an erotic lassitude where she could hardly think straight, see straight. Everything was so strange. Or... no. That wasn't the right word. It was _stupefying_. Like drinking too much Chartreuse. She had no control.

With each caress, each kiss, it was as if he became less and less alien. More and more entrancing.

Instinct? Or something worse?

Soon, Solomon's hands began to wander further. Trailing up and down her waist, along her bare thigh, down around the curve of her bottom. She gasped as he drew her tighter against him, mouths locked together, his clothes scratchy against her breasts and belly, his warm heavy weight across hers and his arousal a sharp outline between them. Whimpering, Saya threaded her arms around him. Her bones had turned traitor, melting to wet paper, her mind utterly unmoored from reason, even as its edges kept crackling with warnings of the disaster, the inevitable _horror_ , that would follow this capitulation.

She wasn't supposed to give in to her desires this way. Wasn't supposed to accept solace.

And if she was, than it wasn't supposed to be with _Solomon_.

It was supposed to be with...

 _Oh_.

Dreamlike, deceptively natural, Solomon's hand had slipped between her clenched thighs. Cupping her with a possessiveness that made her feel both cherished and senseless. The sudden contact was too brazen, _too much_. Jerking, she grabbed at his hand—but whether it was resistance or a plea for more, she couldn't say. Didn't have the air for it, not when Solomon kept filling her gasping mouth with kisses.

Then his fingers were slipping in; wet, teasing. Rubbing so quick and soft she imagined the sudden touch of a butterfly's wings.

_"S-Solomon—"_

Her breath caught. The caress was invasive, but far from rough. By degrees, he seemed to intuit exactly where to go; a seductive pace designed to erode the remnants of her resistance. Lightly caressing her with slow, clever strokes. The heel of his palm grinding against her, making her wriggle and suck up her lip, repressing plaintive cries. And all the while, between hard gulping kisses, he watched her intently. As if solving a complex Chinese finger-trap that required total focus.

Thought fragments passed behind her closed eyelids— _oh-god-I-mustn't-let-him-do-this-oh-please-don't-stop_. This urge, so hot and powerfully arousing, to let him take charge, to be passive, bewildered her. She'd never felt it before. Certainly not with Haji. Her Chevalier had never touched her in this fashion _—_ a tender irreverence that was half-adoration, half-ownership. He had acted, always, only with her permission.

 _Haji_.

Clarity erupted through her, overpowering, tailed by acrid misgiving.

_"Oh oh no, oh please, oh god."_

It was a hitching sob, her hands clutching at him, not in resistance so much as needful balance, where none existed.

Startled, Solomon broke away. _"What's wrong?"_

Saya breathed raggedly and couldn't reply. Her skin burned all over, a localized current of need. Her left palm was starfished across his chest. Against his racing heartbeat, her own felt like a slow, narcotized thump.

Yet the sensation blooming through her, as if there was a live-wire inside her, seeking a connection the might complete the frantic circuit, was the opposite of respite.

Disappointment.

_Oh God._

_What am I doing?_

Jerkily, she tried to squirm out from beneath Solomon's weight. Struggling, with every ragged breath, to regain control. To repress the feeling that she'd stopped him _much_ too soon.

Even the air between them seemed to sizzle.

_Oh God. Oh God._

_"Do you want to go?"_ Solomon whispers now.

Saya's whole body thrums to the sound of his voice. She has to claw for words:

 _"Solomon, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't—be doing_ this _. I have to go. I'm so sorry."_

Solomon's lips form a self-deprecating smile. _"I know you are. It's going to sound crass, but I wish I could say the same."_

_"Wh-what?"_

He sighs. _"I couldn't be sorry if I tried. You know how I feel about you, Saya. But if this is not what you want, it doesn't have to go any further. It never has to be mentioned again."_

 _"Solomon…"_ Her head spins. She wants to grab her clothes and fly out of here. She can think clearer once she's alone. She can shake off this churning stupor when she's outside.

Instead her gaze tangles in the green whorls of Solomon's eyes.

Impossible to look away.

 _"Saya… if you want to leave, you're free to_." His voice is raspy, but strangely tender. " _I'll let you dress, and take you back home. Just give me the word. With us, it will always be how you say."_

His gentle gaze is bewitching. Her mind, already saturated, seems to liquefy.

_"I d-don't—"_

_"What?"_

_"I—I don't know. I'm sorry_. _Maybe—we_ should _stop. I shouldn't be doing this. I have to go…"_

The _maybe_ is like a crack in her shield. All Solomon does is lean close, tracing her lips with a thumb, and it shatters wide open.

_"Saya, I understand you're upset right now. We both know grief's a little bit like alcohol. When you suffer too much of it, you do things which you feel immensely sorry for later. I don't want you to think I'm impelled to take advantage of that."_

_"What—?"_

Abruptly, Haji's voice resounds:

_…Don't you think he is taking some advantage of the vulnerable state you are in?_

_—It's not your place to tell me what I can't do, and it never was._

She winces against sudden tears.

_Haji…_

Solomon blinks, taken aback at her reaction. To her surprise, he tugs her parted robe closed in a light, strangely decorous gesture.

 _"Saya… if you're feeling pressured into this… just tell me. I don't want it to be that way with us. There doesn't have to_ be _an 'us', unless you want it."_

Unless _she_ wants it?

How can he say that, when it's so obvious she can't push him away? Shame and disorientation pulses in little conflicting shocks through her. She tries to picture dressing, dashing out the door—but _can't_. She tries to picture Haji, what he'd say if he saw her here—but Haji seems so far away.

And…

Perhaps, it's better that way.

She's never brought him anything but grief all his life. Every moment with him reminds her of what she's done wrong. How much she has to make up for. A love that aches in so many ways.

_Haji… I'm so sorry…_

_"I know you feel a certain responsibility for Haji,"_ Solomon adds, as if he knows what she's thinking. _"But I don't want that to color your judgement. Only… Saya, please. Why can't you come away with me? I know you're unhappy here. Please…just let me take care of you. After the war, you deserve something other than pain and suffering. You deserve to be happy."_

_Happy._

The word scorches her head-to-toe. Happiness is the true anomaly in her life. What always eludes, destroys her. Her life, her very being, just isn't fashioned for it.

But maybe… with Solomon, it can be different. Maybe with him, she can learn to forget her past.

Everything with him would be starting anew, after all.

A new life.

Somewhere in a recess of the lounge, a grandfather clock sounds. Dreamlike, Saya counts the chimes. They seem mournful, almost funerary. Each ring seems to cry _don't don't don't._

Tears fill her eyes.

Solomon hesitates, then drapes an arm around her. She stiffens, anticipating a devious physical overture. Her hand is pressed in between their bodies, a warm hard point crushed over her heart, as if to make metaphors literal, to keep that part away from him.

But Solomon just encircles her tight, pressing his face to her mussed hair. Breathing in.

She realizes, numb, that he's breathing _her_. Imbibing her scent of misgiving and tears.

She flashes back to that night at his New York apartment. When he'd snatched her close this way, with a passion that was so dizzying, yet so far from erotic. As if her presence, her _self_ were more than enough to appease him. She'd been stunned by the force of his apparent feelings for her, their ways and means.

'Feelings' that should've channeled from such a narrow selfish groove.

Solomon's grip loosens. He looks down into her eyes. _"I know I'm being terribly forward. But Saya, I wouldn't be saying this at all, if I didn't know I could help you. I_ can _. Whatever you think you've lost to the war—we can get it back."_ He presses a gentle kiss to her forehead. _"I would give my own life before hurting you. You must believe that. My only wish is for your happiness. All I ask in return is that you trust me."_

His expression, so soft-eyed, plunges her back again to his New York apartment. Or—even beyond that. To when she'd danced with him at the Lycee ball.

_Trust me._

Maybe… she can make herself believe him. Maybe things will get better, if she forsakes her past completely. Wasn't she happier in Okinawa, when all her memories were locked away? Wasn't everything so much easier, when she had no idea who— _what—_ she really was?

A strange premonition fills her. Again, she sees those jagged sea-side rocks, plunging to demolish her.

_Accept your past, Saya..._

Isn't that what her father had said?

But then Solomon's lips trace through her hair, along her ear. And everything fades against that pulsing salvo inside. That effect he has on her, to cut through her judgement, her restraint, _herself_ —is terrifying.

Yet she can't stop wanting more.

She looks at his eyes. At the intense superheated depths of longing there. How long has he been restraining himself? His gaze is so encompassing; she could drown into it without regret. Which should be a cliché, the _drowning_ —except it isn't.

Clichés are so infused in people's minds that they forget what makes them so dangerous in the first place.

She is quivering, even before Solomon takes her chin. Eyes squeezed so tightly shut that she sees colored lights exploding in blackness.

_"Saya? What is it? Tell me, if you don't—"_

The word is swallowed by an electrifying gasp as her mouth meets his.

Negotiations over. They're both doomed.

Solomon's bed is a black futon. It's the only thing she remembers about his bedroom. There are wide tinted windows beyond, flooding the room with panoramic city lights. She imagines hundreds of people everywhere, taking in the same view, connected by those twinkling lights.

_And they don't know._

_They have no idea what I'm doing here with Solomon …_

The details of the act are so blurry. All Saya recalls, in secondhand flashes, are the sensations. Unfamiliar, yet with an odd déjà vu. Like every battle where she nearly lost her life, suspended in a vertigo between life and death.

It might has well have been. A long liquid plunge into death. Invasive.

She remembers Solomon's warm hands and hot mouth sliding everywhere, leaving glowy inroads across her skin. Remembers his wicked murmured praises, racing like runic patterns along her body, sinking deep into her bones. Making her tremble. Melting her. Telling her about her sweetness, her warmth. The delicious color of her nipples. The hot tang of her skin. She is lulled into a drunken stupor by his whispered incantations—his words licking every inch of her body alongside his tongue and his gaze.

A viva-voce sorcery.

She remembers other things too. The salt of Solomon's sweat on her tongue, the tang of his blood. So searingly painful, when he first inches into her. _Relax_ , _Saya—just relax._ Stopping, then starting, again and again, finding a groove that seems to please her. Abiding to it, slow and relentless, until everything distorts to a tangle of muffled whimpers and enveloping heat. She doesn't lie still under him; she moves to his rhythm, rides out each new sensation. Breath an erratic pulsebeat, quickening to fevered moans. Solomon's voice in her ear, whispering the most delicious, depraved encouragement, when he isn't gnawing her neck or sucking on her tongue.

Reality dissolves into a disembodied void. All thought blotted by the headrush of blood-tinged kisses, her pounding pulse, the motions of his body inside her. She wants to lose herself to this onrush. A star in the sky, a zero at the core of emptiness.

Utterly free.

With every kiss, the destruction comes full circle. She sees those sea-side rocks again, swooping to shatter her. Feels herself drowning into oblivion, sinking out of sight.

Never to resurface.

In the blue afternoon hours, cramps and guilt are a sickening miasma. She throws up twice in Solomon's bathroom before calming down enough to accept a glass of orange juice from him. Reminders of last night are everywhere she looks. The room, the bed, everything is steeped in the aroma of their exertions.

Slumped on the edge of the mattress, Saya lets her head fall in her hands. Crying soundlessly, while Solomon sits somber-eyed beside her, stroking her hair.

 _It's okay,_ he keeps soothing. _Saya, please, it's okay._

Only they both know it isn't. The damage is already done. He's slithered into her system now, and the rest will be inevitable. Incriminating.

Saya knows it's just her imagination, but deep down, she can already feel an unwelcome presence germinating in her womb, like an animal who knows instinctively its hovel was invaded.

_What have I done? What have I done?_

Solomon drops her home in his car, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead.

" _I know you might want to be alone, think things over. But please call as soon as you're ready to. I'll be waiting."_

Letting her off the hook, without letting her off at all. From the expression on his face, she can tell that he's already committed.

But so is she.

The taste of his mouth already feels like an addictive necessity to her.

Stepping through the door, she aches all over, with a sore congested heat between her legs, a yoke of furtive tension across her shoulders. Her footsteps resound loudly in her ears as she crosses the living-room, hoping no one will be there. She just wants to shut herself in her room. Pretend none of this ever ever happened.

But to her dismay, _Haji_ is there to greet her. When she enters, he rises from his chair. Wanting to apologize for his long absence, beg her to overlook last night's quarrel and inquire where she's been.

But the moment he takes her in his arms, he freezes.

Saya realizes that he can tell, just by looking at her, what's happened. Her whole body telegraphs its betrayal in every sense.

She watches the rage and pain creep into his eyes. His hands drop from her body, clenching as if burned. And she feels like she's just torn her own lungs out, stepped into a void without air.

There is no more breath in the world.

And without him, there never will be again.

_I'm sorry, Haji._

_I'm so sorry..._


	28. Confession

_Present moment..._

* * *

 

Kai's going to lose his _fucking_ mind.

Today's been a carousel of horrors. First Saya arrives at Omoro, incoherent and gushing blood. Then Haji jams a hole through Solomon's gut— _Solomon_ , who's got such a shitload of _explaining_ to do Kai's already itching to punch the wall thinking about it. Now they're telling him Saya has to be operated on before she bleeds to death.

They've taken her behind those swinging gray doors. Since then, everything's been quiet.

Teeth gritted, Kai sinks into a chair. His clothes are soaked in Saya's blood. Even his shoes. Red footprints track across the tiles, shiny and precise, like something from those stupid dance schools. In the fluorescent lights, their edges glisten wetly.

God, he hates hospitals. Everything's so weirdly sterile and fake. He hates the hypocrisy of the doctors and nurses, the medical jargon and the bleeping machinery.

It makes him feel stupid. _Weak_.

All his life, Kai's trusted nothing but his own judgement. He can't just sit here twiddling his thumbs. It reminds him too much of the war—everyone who was killed because he was too helpless to save them.

Saya could be _dying_ in there—and he's stuck in this stupid antiseptic room, unable to—

"The smartest thing we can do right now is wait."

This is David. He leans on the wall opposite to Kai, arms crossed. As always, he exudes this gravitas _calm_ that is almost contagious.

Kai unclenches his jaw, silent.

"She's lost a lot of blood, but they're getting her a transfusion. Saya's a fighter. She'll be all right. The hospital staff won't ask too many questions if we keep this quiet."

"Fuck that. What exactly happened to her? In the emergency room, I saw—" He takes a breath. "I saw bruises on her. Claw marks. The kind she used to get in the war."

"According to Julia, she was in a struggle before she came here. She's suffered serious physical trauma. "

"Doesn't take a genius to figure that out. Only question is, what the hell happened." He frowns. "What about the Red Shield lookouts? Did they spot Haji and Solomon?"

"Our sources reported them combating downtown. I gave the order to dispatch…" David hesitates. "You know who I mean by the Fairy Queen."

"You're fucking kidding me."

"Placing Red Shield staff before two angry Chevaliers is a tactical error. We've seen what happens when Chiropterans go on a rampage. The best choice is to fight fire with fire."

"That's not the same as fire with _freaks_. What if he just makes the situation worse? He's not—" Kai breaks off, spotting something at the corridor. "Shit."

"What?"

"Forget all about keeping this situation quiet now. And while we're on the subject— _I told you so_."

David turns to what Kai's staring at. And curses.

Nathan Mahler, as offensively out of place in this spotless hospital as he is anywhere else in Kai's life, saunters toward them. Dragging, across the floor, two black bodybags. The vinyl screeches loudly on the tiles. The bags seem lumpy, disproportionate, as if full of machinery parts.

Kai shoots up with a snarl. "Christ—what are you _doing_ here?"

Nathan bats his eyelashes. "Why hello there, carrot-top. You don't look over a year older than the _last_ time I saw you. Which is funny, considering it's only been three months."

"You're not supposed to be here! Red Shield contacted you to find _Haji_ and _Solomon_!"

"Hel- _lo._ Been there, done that."

"What d'you mean?"

With the flourish of a _ta daa,_ Nathan drops the bags with _thuds_.

"What's in those bags?"

"Chevaliers. Takeaway style."

"What?" Kai shakes his head. "No. No way."

"Of _course_. Why else would I be lugging those ugly things around?" Yawning, Nathan examines a manicured fingernail. "And I'm still waiting for a big wet _thank you_ for my trouble, by the way."

David frowns. "Is this some sort of joke? Solomon and Haji wouldn't fit in those bags."

"Well, it was better than carrying them in brown paper bags. Their parts would've bled out from the bottom."

"Parts?"

"But of course. Can't put away a piano without dismantling it first, right?"

" _Dismantle_ —wait, you mean they're in _pieces_!?"

"Mmm hmm. Like life-size Mr. Potatoes." He claps suddenly, eyes brightening. "Oh, I know! You can help me put them back together! It'll be fun! I've always wanted to play human jigsaw with you, Kai…" He winks, allowing the remark to take insinuative shape.

Kai glowers. Nathan feeds most exuberantly on drama; rising to his jabs is a waste of time altogether.

"How could you just bring these bags in here?" David cuts in. "This is a _public_ hospital. If someone sees you—"

The Chevalier lets off a laugh, sharp and derisive. " _Someone sees you_? I've dragged these two across the entire boulevard, in plain sight—and trust me; no one even _looked_ my way. Honestly, do people _ever_ see anything around them? If mankind was half as intelligent as you give them credit for, there'd be no such things as television, wars, or lawyers—and where's the _fun_ in that?"

"Where did you retrieve them from?"

"Does it matter? All rooftops look the same from above." Nathan smoothes back his immaculately-waved hair. "But much as I enjoyed watching their Mother of all Catfights, I'm pretty sure they lured a few eyewitnesses. Sixty percent of them'll be visiting the hospital's psychiatric ward in a few minutes, by the way."

Kai stares at the bodybags. "What did you… do to them?"

"Oh, nothing complicated. First I broke Solomon's legs off, then I used them to knock Haji out. Tore out a few vital organs. Dislocated a spinal cord. A ripped spleen, some dented genitalia." Nathan hefts a bag, rattling the insides around. "Of course, I might've gotten the latter two mixed up. Want to help me check?"

Kai squeezes his eyes shut. "I think I'm gonna be sick…"

"Oh, loosen up. They're Chevaliers, not sick puppies. Just string them together with adhesive tape, slap on some blood-packs, and they'll be raring to go." Suddenly bored, Nathan lets the bag drop with a _thud_ , yawning extravagantly. "By the way, how's Humpty Dumpty doing?"

"Who?"

"Generally, you call her _Saya_."

Before Kai can answer, the gray doors swing open. Julia steps in, exhaustion evident in the lines of her mouth and the limp strands of hair escaping her ponytail. "David, Kai—I have news."

Kai tenses. "What is it? How's Saya?"

"She's fine. She's lost a great deal of blood, but her condition seems to have stabilized. She's resting right now."

"What about her babies?"

"The first was born reasonably healthy, but the second was unresponsive from lack of oxygen. Fortunately, we resuscitated her on time. Our team's keeping them under examination. Overall they seem perfectly—"

The _wzzzt_ of a zipper cuts her short. Everyone turns to Nathan, who kneels by an open bodybag, withdrawing a severed arm. Shreds of suit-fabric and a Rolex watch on the wrist mark it as Solomon's.

Nathan glances at them, nonchalant.

"What? How often d'you get to reassemble two _ridiculously_ pretty grown men together? Don't know about you, but it's things like these that make immortality _tolerable_."

* * *

Light as air.

Her heart, her limbs, every part of her. Floating through whiteness that isn't whiteness at all, but a hundred different colors, all softly subsuming each other. Every shade of the rainbow, and several she's never seen before.

Doesn't know where she is. Doesn't care.

Because Haji is with her.

They both lie facing each other, on something white and downy. Cotton? Clouds?

Floating.

_"Is it over?"_

She isn't conscious of speaking. The thought seems to drift off her like an aroma. Haji inhales it out of the air.

_"Do you want it to be?"_

His own words—thoughts?—feel different from hers. She imagines hers to be warm and red. Soft, but with a spicy undertone. Haji's are clearer, cooler. Sleek like water.

_'We're both dead, right? It's over?"_

She feels an upsurge of sadness and strange hope.

 _"I wouldn't want it to be,"_ Haji says.

_"Why?"_

_"Don't you see yet, Saya? Dying isn't the point. Living is."_

_"But I don't want to live, Haji. I can't. Everytime I try… its just too hard."_

_"You can learn to try again."_

_"Why? How many times can I keep trying? What's the point?"_ Tears fill her eyes. _"I've lived so many lives, over and over. And every one of them has been futile. Full of grief and death. I just can't do this anymore, Haji. I'm sorry."_

She feels Haji's cool hand twine through hers. _"Do you believe in fate, Saya?"_

 _"You know I don't. How can I? Fate wasn't responsible for all the mistakes in my life._ I _was. Anything I did to correct them, I did on my own."_

_"It can be that way here, too."_

_"What do you mean?"_

_"To accept fate means giving in to death. Because that is the only thing that cannot be fought. But if you choose to live… then you prove that you're in control of your own future. You choose to fight."_

Saya's lips curve. _"Are you trying to trick me into going back?"_

_"Why would I do that?"_

_"Because you sound so much like Solomon."_ She sighs _. "Joel always told me that the voice of conscience and the voice of temptation sound exactly the same. I didn't know what he meant. But I do now."_

_"True. But the freedom to discern one from the other is entirely your own."_

She has no answer.

Haji turns to look at something behind him. She can't see what. Everything is a symbioses of ethereal colors, and yet, of nothing at all.

 _"He's worried about you,"_ Haji says. _"Solomon."_

_"I'm worried about him too. I try not to be, but I can't help it. Haji—I hurt him. I hurt him more than he did me. And none of it was his fault. His only mistake was falling in love with me."_

Haji shakes his head. _"Loving you was probably the closest to happiness he ever experienced, Saya. I know… because it was the same for me."_

She smiles sadly. Far off, a dull mewing noise. Melting, lyrical, like a song.

 _"What is that?"_ she asks.

_"Your daughters. I think they're calling for you."_

_"My… daughters."_

_"Yes. They'd like you to come back to them. Your whole family would. As would I."_

Disappointment blooms and dies. _"Then… you aren't really here with me?"_

 _"I am. But this place isn't anywhere at all."_ He rises, airy, almost weightless. His fingers are laced gently with hers _. "Please, Saya. You know you can't stay here. Please… come back to us?"_

His eyes are soft, questioning. Waiting for her. She feels as if he'd wait, if need be, until the end of time.

 _"Will you be there?"_ she asks.

_"Of course I will."_

She swallows, but his voice dispels all hesitation.

She lets him take her hand, and, like after every battle and every Awakening, draw her back from oblivion and into _life_.

* * *

"Saya?"

A cool touch on her closed eyelids. Fluttering to her forehead, her hair. His lips.

"Saya, please wake up?"

She opens hazy eyes. A white room swims in and out of focus before she sees Haji looking at her. His black hair stands out crisply against his pale skin. He's wearing a long white gown, flowy as an angel's.

_I must be dreaming…_

"Saya, do you think you could drink a little water?"

She nods. Mind cushioned in layers of softness, everything so hazy. Haji beside her, encasing her face with his cool hands and soft blue gaze. She'd wanted so badly to be with him. And here he is.

_Make the dream last, please make it last…_

He extends a cup with a red plastic straw. She catches it in her mouth, pulls. Sweet water, cool and welcome as Haji's touch. Her swollen tongue absorbs it, tingling.

In Haji's free arm, something white and squirmy. A cat?

No, a baby.

"Would you like to hold her for a while?" Haji offers the flannel-wrapped bundle. "Her sister is in the nursery with Doctor Julia. She and… Solomon are still conducting the apgar score."

_Solomon?_

Confusion flutters, birdlike. Doesn't know what's happening—but doesn't care. She's just happy to be with Haji. Can pretend, maybe, the baby's his… with his sleek hair and marble skin. Just a dream, but she'd like to pretend.

Haji puts the wriggly weight in her arms. She smiles at the baby's apple cheeks and brown eyes. They look so familiar, but why not? Just like hers, after all.

The little mouth is pursed, and instinctively, she knows what she's supposed to do. Vague memory of sitting beside a green-eyed man, a musical voice explaining details from a textbook. But the recollection sears her. Something bad happened to that green-eyed person. But what?

So painful; her mind shies from examining it.

Automatically, Saya unbuttons her smock. Guides one breast to the tiny bubbling mouth. The resultant pain is sharp. She flinches, but the baby's already latched on. After a beat, fluid begins to flow. She hears the baby coo as she swallows.

With a bemused smile, Saya gathers the warm morsel closer. "Hungry baby…"

Haji averts his gaze, embarrassed. She smiles. Such a sweet dream, with Haji acting just as she knows he'd act in real life. Floating on this soft warm bed, with fuzzy lights and chubby baby. It's almost like _being there_...

"Haji." She reaches her free hand for him.

He catches it in both his own, all shyness gone. Crouching to kneel beside her, his eyes are so bright. "Saya, you'd lost so much blood. The doctors almost didn't think you would survive. How did you make it here?"

She smiles wanly. "Does it matter?"

"I knew you were in danger. We were on a Red Shield operation in New York, when I—felt something strange. This premonition, as if something terrible was going to happen to you. As if you were in a battle and needed help."

She tries to understand him, but her mind is layered in fog. Settles instead, for the simple joy of hearing his voice.

"I'm… sorry I worried you, Haji."

He lifts her hand to his lips, kisses her fingers one by one. "Everyone was worried, Saya. I almost thought you were—"

"Oh, lordy! What a pair of _knockers_!"

The sudden cry, unfamiliar yet not, is sharp as a trombone.

Saya turns. A man with dramatically unkempt yellow hair saunters into the room, his ensemble a garish mélange of ruffled shirts, cowboy boots, and pink elastic pants.

 _Nathan_?

Haji rises, but keeps one hand curled around Saya's. "We don't recall inviting you in."

"True, and when has _that_ ever stopped me?" With an air of satisfaction, Nathan contemplates the nursing baby. "Wow. Look at her! She's really going at it like a champ. Must get it from her dad." He winks at Haji. "Y'know, handsome, if you make nice, Saya might just offer you some of her leftovers."

Haji scowls, but doesn't answer. Saya starts giggling.

Such a silly dream…

Nathan gently pats her head, a fond, almost avuncular gesture. "My congratulations, Saya. And wholehearted sympathies. These girls are going to give you absolute hell. Today's the day you kiss your beauty sleep and sumptuous sex-life goodbye."

"My…other baby," Saya whispers. "Where is she?"

"Oh, she was born as blue as her eyes. Oxygen deprivation or something. But don't worry—they've fixed her right up. Her Daddy refuses to unhand her." Nathan snickers. "Honestly, you should've seen the look on Solomon's face. He still can't believe he helped you make these little spit-machines—oh, bite my spiteful tongue. I meant _divine_ _cherubim_."

"He… helped?"

"Of course, sweetie. Remember all the in-and-outing he did for you?"

"Nathan, go away," Haji interjects.

"Ooh, _snippy_. Is that any way to thank the man who lovingly reassembled you piece by piece? I could've just as easily given you one kidney and another man's pego, y'know?" He puts a finger to his chin. "Hold on. Maybe I did. Mind if I lift up your gown and check, Haji?"

Saya tunes the chatter out. Haji's hand is curled around hers, and she gives it a squeeze. The baby's fallen asleep at her breast. Everything so drowsy and peaceful.

 _Please let me enjoy this a little longer_ …

Nathan reaches for her, but Haji steps forward protectively. The elder Chevalier swats him off. " _Relax_. I'm not going to cop a feel. You should be worrying about _Solomon_ for that." With a strange one-handed ease, he gently scoops up the baby. "Yes, you're a sleepy little queen, aren't you? Hungry as a hippo and stoned senseless as your mommy…"

He places the baby in a little Plexiglas cradle, right at her bedside. Saya regards the child with dreamy satisfaction.

"Saya?"

She turns.

Standing at the door, a wide-eyed, red-haired man. His clothes are brown with dried blood, a stark contrast to his strained white face.

"Saya, are you okay?"

She frowns. Something about his voice turns a jammed gear in her brain, revolving it smoothly so her disorientation falls away. A sudden trembling washes over her.

This is what Kai's voice always does, regardless of emotion or age. Strikes her like a shard of sunlight, calling her with brutal immediacy to _now_.

"K-Kai?" She's hyperventilating. Eyes all at once awash in tears, everything of the past few days crashing back to her. Without realizing it, she begins sobbing. "Kai… oh my god— _Kai_!"

He rushes to her, and all at once, she's wrapped up in his familiar solid hold, one hand still curled around Haji's—no longer squeezing, but grappling for dear life, because she realizes this is _no dream at all_.

_Oh god._

_I'm really here._

_I'm finally_ home _._

* * *

_My daughter._

_Mine and Saya's._

_This little girl came from_ us _._

The baby, blanket-wrapped, lies in her crib. Her fists rest by her shoulders, clenched like rosebuds. Lips full and pouting, just like Saya's when she'd be asleep. She is very still.

Solomon keeps wanting to touch her, make sure she's breathing.

To think her birth was just an impending event. And suddenly, this little person is the result. Almost a sign, that his and Saya's connection is more than just some gratuitous instinct for animal sex. Out of his emptiness, her despair, they've made these drops of pure sweetness.

His and Saya's _children_.

Solomon can't help it now. He touches the baby's cheek. The flesh feels impossibly soft against his fingers. Warm and vibrantly alive, just like her mother's.

Dr. Silverstein says the baby's gotten low apgar results. She isn't particularly vocal or responsive, and she was born very blue. But given the conditions she was delivered in, it isn't surprising.

_Doesn't matter._

_She's mine, and I'll do everything possible to keep her healthy._

_She and her sister are all I have._

_Them, and… Saya._

He hasn't seen his wife since the birth. And the anxiety is driving him _insane_. After all this, the idea of not touching her, speaking to her, is _torment_. He wants to know if she's all right. Wants to know what happened in Prague, how she arrived here. Since she force-fed him those bloodpacks, everything's been a hellish blur.

Yet he knows, without doubt, that he did something awful.

Something to Saya.

_She was going to leave before that. She was threatening to go away._

The memory only heightens his desperation. He _must_ speak to her, convince her to come back. Surely after this—the birth of their _children_ , for god's sake—she will see reason. He isn't sure what happened after he blanked-out in Prague. But whatever he did to her, he's ready to apologize, make up for it in every way.

He can't exist without her. The idea seems impossible, anomalous. He _needs_ her, needs the tones of her voice and all her dizzy-making aromas, her piercing glances and laughter. She's gotten inside him like a tonic, a drug. Singing through his sinews and very thoughts. She's _part_ of him. _Made_ his life, brought him to life, brought out facets and feelings in his nature that he'd never dreamed of possessing.

Her ferocious little essence is humming through him. He can't rip her out without tearing himself in two.

 _Please. Please just let me see her. I promise I will love her better, I will hold her better, I will_ be _better, if only for the sake of her and our children._

 _We're all here together now. We can be a family. I_ know _we can._

Looking back on it, it hits him, as if for the first time, that this is what he's wanted all along.

To have someone belong to him. To belong to someone in return. To have something to call _his_.

Otherwise immortality is a waking death without significance.

It _will_ be the death of him, unless Saya comes back.

"Admiring yours and Saya's teamwork?"

Solomon turns in his seat.

Nathan appears out of nowhere, as vivid and inexplicable as a hallucination. "How're you feeling? Overwhelmed? Weepy? All rousing signs of fatherhood. Either that, or the body parts I assembled on you aren't integrating."

Solomon plucks at the material of his shirt. He's wearing yellow flannel pajamas that make his skin look papery, anemic. His eyes are ringed in shadow. "I'm fine. I examined myself when you'd gone."

"Of course. So typical of you to think everyone'll do a hack job unless _you_ do it personally." Nathan settles into a chair, crossing his legs and placing his chin on his fist. "That awful butterscotch yellow really clashes with your skin tone, y'know. Or maybe you're still just peaky. Want another blood-pack?"

Solomon's eyes narrow. "Don't patronize me, Nathan. Where is Saya? Where is my other daughter?"

"Well, since she was the noisier of the two, we decided to chuck a tit at her." Pouting, Nathan examines her sleeping counterpart. "This one's _still_ out like a light. But, from what I've observed, the blue-eyed Queens are usually the more _sedate_ types. Something to do with genes, I think. Of course, Diva's and Saya's case was the _opposite_ —but as with all else, I blame the humans for the psychological fuckery."

"I need to see Saya, Nathan. Why aren't they letting me see her?"

"Well, last I saw, she was high off her gourd, and nursing the baby. Haji was watching."

At this, Solomon jerks out of his seat.

Nathan lets off a delighted cackle. "There—I _knew_ that'd get a rise out of you! Bad enough the twins took over your parking space. Can't let Haji home in on it too, right?"

"I have had enough. I am going to see Saya."

Solomon reaches for the doorknob, but Nathan suddenly appears before him, flicking at his chest. The gesture is playful, but the impact sends Solomon flying back as if bludgeoned.

Gasping, Solomon massages his dented ribs. "Nathan, what are you—"

Nathan's expression is calm. But a warning undercurrent flickers through his gaze, crackling and buzzing like a miasma.

"You want to tear the whole hospital apart fighting Haji, be my guest. I'd enjoy watching the whole scene play out—red blood on white walls makes a delicious background, if you ask me. But I doubt your estranged wife would be pleased."

"She's not my estranged wife. We had a misunderstanding—I need to talk to her about it. I must see her!"

"She's sleeping right now. I'd advise you to stay away. I think we _all_ know how cranky a Queen can get if her nap's interrupted."

"I don't care! I just need to _see_ her—I need to know if she's all right." Taking a breath, Solomon presses his temples as if to squeeze something out. "Oh god. This is a _nightmare_. How did she make it here in this condition? How did—"

"Solomon. Get a grip. You're two heartbeats away from dripping snot out your nose like a five-year-old brat."

"This is not your concern, Nathan. This is between Saya and myself."

The elder Chevalier chuckles, deceptively silky. Reaching out, he strokes Solomon's cheek, a strange undulant caress.

"I think, Solomon, that when Saya showed up at Kai's door, it became _everyone's_ business. So for your own sake, if no one else's, do yourself a favor: _shut up and sit down_."

Nathan demonic voice, though low, rumbles through the room.

Solomon tries to match his glare, but it is impossible. The elder Chevalier's eyes are like bright prisms over some massive concentration of force.

Backing down, he drops his gaze. "Nathan—you don't understand. Something happened in Prague. Something terrible. I need to explain everything to Saya. I have to make her see the truth. She'll come back to me then—she won't—"

As if sensing the turmoil radiating off him, the baby begins to cry.

Solomon and Nathan turn. Solomon hesitates, then breaks away, gently lifting the baby from her crib.

"Sssh, sweetheart. Lets not make a fuss." He rocks her gently in the crook of his arm, until her cries simmer to gurgles, then tiny hiccoughs, like an idling engine.

Nathan smirks. "Y'know, I've never seen you dandle a baby before. At least when it wasn't to twist its head off and offer the neck to Diva. But stranger still, it suits you. Gives your face a—how should I put it?— _reflective_ look."

Solomon ignores him. Slicing a fingertip across his fangs, he holds it over her pursed mouth. Blood drips out as if squeezed from a dropper, slipping past the tiny pink gums.

Nathan crooks a brow. "Well that's something I haven't seen before. You, sharing blood with no sex or favors attached. Did you even sterilize your hands?"

"Twice over. Which is more than I would say for anything else in this place. I'll shift Saya to one of the better hospitals in the city. But first I need to speak to her." He glances back at Nathan. "I _must_ see her, Nathan. I don't know how much more I can take _._ "

As if he hasn't heard, Nathan idly taps his chin. "Y'know, you really remind me of someone, holding the baby."

"Nathan, I do not have time to play games with you. I need to—"

"Really the more I look at you, the more I see it. You look just like your poor Queen."

"Who?"

"Diva. She'd get that same expression, talking about her babies. That's just how she looked right before she died." Nathan's tone is whimsical, but with a strange solemnity underneath.

"What are you talking about, Nathan? Please, I am in no mood for any of this. Unless you _do_ want me tearing the hospital down, _let me see Saya._ I swear I won't be angry with her. I just want to see her— _I need to know if she's all right_."

" _Fine_. I'll check in with her. No need to grate your tonsils off— _jeez_." Making a show of cleaning out his ear, Nathan huffs and leaves the room.

Solomon refocuses on the baby, letting her tiny hands explore his nose and face. Her eyes are bright and liquid, little coos bubbling from her lips. Solomon smiles at her, soft and abstracted, as if caught in a dream.

Or on the verge of being ripped out of one.

Sighing, Nathan shuts the door on them.

"Honestly. Just like Diva."

There is something almost akin to regret in his tone.

* * *

Kai's taken the baby to Dr. Julia for an examination. Haji's changed out of his hospital gown in favor of black pants and a white button-down shirt. Both belonging to David, and too wide on his lanky frame.

He leans against the wall, arms crossed.

Saya can see him through the screen of her lashes. Lying in bed, memory spirals back in a sharp cramp. Kai's already told her everything that's happened. How she got here, how Solomon arrived, how her babies were delivered. Everything exhaustion had blotted from her frantic mind; everything the drugs had held at bay with chemical dreaminess—she has time to process and parse it out at last.

The Prague flat. Solomon's bloody smile. The drone of the airplane. Haji's cool hands on her forehead. And everything before that, all the things she'd done wrong—and can never take back again.

Tears spill from her eyes.

Haji's at her side in a breath. "Saya—what's the matter?"

"N-nothing—" She tries to get up. He slides a hand under her back, gently propping her against his chest. "Haji—I'm so sorry."

"Sorry…?"

"I made a mistake! I'm sorry I went to Solomon!"

"Saya, what happened to you? Did you have another fight with him?"

Tears streak her cheeks. His face seems to swim before her. "No—Haji. I _left_ him. It's over! I'm not going back!"

He smoothes her hair. "Saya. Please tell me what happened. You'll feel better if you tell me."

"Please—please say you don't hate me."

"I don't. Please just tell me."

She tries, between shuddering sobs, to explain. How everything between her and Solomon was so sweet at first. How it spiraled, faster and faster, into mistrust and chaos. Explaining her own hand in destroying the marriage; how much she'd withheld from Solomon, how many ways she'd used him.

How, day after day, she'd realized Solomon wasn't right for her at all. Understood, too late, how much she needed Haji, except he seemed more unreachable every second. The enormity of her own mistake was just too much to swallow.

 _Everything_ she'd done in his absence was a mistake. Her whole life seemed comprised of nothing _but._ Like a harbinger who brought death and suffering wherever she went. She didn't know anymore, how to be anything else. Her psyche was just one massive bruise.

"…I'm sorry Haji. I'm so sorry." She fights to breathe through sobs. "I'm so sorry I went with Solomon. I just wanted to forget about my past. I wanted a new life—a clean slate. I couldn't stand the thought of what I'd done! I just wanted to start my life over!"

"I understand, Saya."

She shakes her head wildly. "No. You _don't_ understand. I was wrong! I was childish, and selfish and stupid! I thought I could turn my back on the past—but I can't, _I can't_. No matter how much I try to run from it, it's going to keep closing in on me! There's no way to stop it."

"Ssh, Saya. It's all right." He presses his lips to her forehead.

"No—it's not all right. Haji, I'm so sorry I abandoned you. I was afraid! I was afraid being with you would mean facing up to the war, to everything that happened! I didn't want to! I was such a coward! I just wanted to live in my own dream for once! I just wanted…god I don't know _what_ I wanted. I just wanted to escape this life!"

"Saya, please. You have to stop blaming yourself. You are not cowardly, nor are you weak. You are—always have been—the bravest woman I know."

She presses her wet face to his shoulder. "No, Haji. I wasn't brave at all! I was a coward! After everything you did for me, I abandoned you! I just wanted a chance to live out my own fantasy! I was so horrible to you! I'm so so sorry! Please forgive me!"

"Saya, there is nothing to forgive."

"Please. Haji. Please don't say that. I don't deserve you—I don't deserve anything from you! After everything I did, how can you even stand to speak to me! Why are you being so good to me?!"

Haji laces his fingers with hers, pressing her palm to his lips. "Saya, you needed to find your own way, decide what you wanted. How can I possibly blame you for that? After everything you went through, how could I blame you for wanting something different from your life?"

Self-loathing rises like bile. "How can you _not_ blame me? You're unreal! I mistreated you and walked out on you! I let you down in so many ways! I behaved like an absolute monster!" Tears drip down her chin, soaking her throat, her blouse. Her shoulders rattle with sobs. "How can you say all these things to me? How can you possibly forgive me?"

Haji's eyes glitter. The corners of his mouth tighten as if he's on the verge of tears himself. "Saya, it's when you are selfish and frightened that you need to be forgiven the most. Because it's only then that I understand, how truly unhappy you are."

The gentle confession is like a scimitar. Her crying redoubles. "Haji…I'm so sorry! I'm sorry I hurt you—I'm sorry for everything. I love you so much—please tell me it's not too late! Please say you'll stay with me!?"

"Of course I will, Saya."

"Swear it! Please! Swear to me! I can't do this without you!"

"Saya…" Words seem beyond Haji. He pulls her closer, head tucked under his chin. His grip is almost crushing. But she needs that, needs that feeling of being held down. She won't shiver away if he's holding her like this.

This was what Haji does for her—what he's always done. He keeps her tethered entirely to this world. A world where, despite the ugliness and ruin, they have managed to weave something so strong and miraculous between them. Something _real_.

She understands now, in a way that eluded her before, that _this_ is love. Not even love—the word seems so inconsequential in the wake of this raw crashing emotion. She doesn't _love_ Haji—he is a part of who she is, someone she can't exist without, any more than her lungs, her very soul.

Solomon's presence bears only the blur of palliative. Soothing the ache, but never healing it. A temporary oblivion that can't withstand the enormity of her past, or the velocity of life itself.

She knows now, in a shameful stab of knowledge, that she'd only been fascinated with him, yearned for him, the way an addict might crave an opiate. Something to take her mind off her life, allow her to subsist in a make-believe dimension, ruled by sensation and gratification.

Profligacy and self-indulgence were the prime bases of her marriage. And she'd wallowed in it to such excesses that it had choked her.

"Haji." She trembles, awash in tears and remorse. "I'm so sorry. Please forgive me."

Haji presses his forehead to hers. That simple gesture that has always been theirs alone to share, and which she realizes now that she's so terribly missed. "Saya, please don't cry anymore. Everything is going to be fine."

"Haji—I love you. Everything you are, everything you've ever been. I'm still yours. I always have been. I'm sorry I went to Solomon. Please forgive me."

Haji kisses her temples; her salty cheeks and fluttering eyelashes. "Saya. It's all right. We both made a mistake, but it isn't irreparable. We can still—"

He's cut off by the door swinging open, and Solomon stepping in. He is pale and still, twines of hair falling over hooded eyes. His hands dangle on either side, as if broken at the wrists.

The sound of his voice descends like frost.

"Saya."

Haji is still holding her, but Saya feels static surge through his frame. The air turns fraught with tension.

"Solomon…" she whispers.

Her husband's eyes are dark, chilling. They flick once from her to Haji.

He steps forward.

A split-second before Haji, in his knee-jerk response to whenever Solomon comes within a foot of her, lunges at him.

The _wham_ of Solomon's head hitting the floor drowns Saya's hysterical shriek.


	29. Breathe

" _No! Stop it—both of you_!"

The two Chevaliers wrestle in a tangle of bloodlust and testosterone. _Zinging_ from wall to wall like lights in a pinball machine.

"What's going on?" Alerted by the furor, Kai and David rush in.

Haji digs his fangs into Solomon's neck. At the same time, Solomon tears a gash across Haji's cheek.

David's eyes widen. "Solomon—Haji—stop it!"

Solomon gains the upper-hand, slamming Haji down. His head rebounds off the linoleum with a _whack_.

"Oh _my_ …" Nathan sidles in with Julia, holding the babies in both arms. His face is a mask of glee.

Kai darts forward. "Haji! Solomon—stop it!"

" _Stop! Both of you_!" Out of nowhere, Saya flies out of bed, shoving them apart. " _Just stop it_!"

The men freeze mid-blow.

In the silence, the blue-eyed baby in Nathan's arms starts wailing.

Saya sways, engulfed in dizziness.

" _Saya_!" Simultaneously, both Chevaliers grab for her.

Haji is faster. She lets her weight fall against him, head lolling on his shoulder. There are red spots everywhere.

"Saya." Solomon takes her hands. "Are you all right?"

Haji jerks her back. "Don't touch her."

Solomon ignores him. "Angel, I'm so glad you're awake. I was afraid something might have happened to you. Please, you should not be on your feet. You need to lie down—"

Saya can't meet his eyes. "I—I'm fine, Solomon. Please let go of my hands."

"Saya, how did you leave Prague? Tell me what happened. I need to know what—"

"We'll talk about it, Solomon, but not now."

"Not now? Saya, don't be absurd. Please, you must come back with me. This is no place for you or our babies. The second you're feeling better, I'll transfer you to—"

"No—" She struggles to regain her former confidence. His voice smears her mind up—makes her feel childish and guilty and wrong.

"Saya, please. We must talk. We need to be alone to discuss everything."

Haji's voice cuts in. "Who let him in here? The last thing Saya needs is this _incubus_ groping her—"

Solomon's eyes flick to his, glacial green. " _What_ did you call me?"

"Please! _Both of you,_ _stop_!"

The baby's cries climb to a _scream_.

Everyone turns. Kai reaches for the infant, but Nathan lifts her away. "Sorry Kai. It's not shrimp tempura this feisty queen's hankering for."

Mechanically, Saya lets Haji pick her up and carry her to bed. Solomon follows, refusing to release her hand. His and Haji's glares intersect the air like deathrays.

Nathan delivers the crying baby into Saya's arms. Her face is grotesquely red, body clenched like a human fist. At a loss, Saya stares at her. Then with a calm efficiency, Julia steps in. Opening Saya's gown, she shows her how to hold a breast, guide it to the mewling mouth.

From her peripheral vision, Saya sees David cough and look away. Kai shoves his hand into his pockets, eyes on the floor.

The baby stops crying at once. In the silence that ensues, the air seems to fill with space.

Julia glances at all the men. "I doubt Saya needs such a captive audience. Don't you think it's a good idea to step outside?"

Kai's eyes narrow. "I want to have a talk with _him_ first." He jabs his thumb at Solomon.

Who, in turn, ignores him completely. It's like that night on Christina Island. Despite everyone gathered around, Solomon only has eyes for _Saya_.

"Angel, please. I've come to fetch you back. I'm sure we can work things out. We just need to be alone so we can discuss everything."

"Solomon—"

"Please. You have to come back with me." He tries to take her hand, but Haji pushes between them like an adamantine shield.

"You're not taking her anywhere."

Solomon raises a palm, cool, seemingly relaxed. But everyone knows how much damage Solomon can do with his hands. And how fast. "I have no desire to speak with you, Haji. This matter concerns Saya and myself. Our marriage is none of your business."

"You don't deserve her. You've given her nothing but pain since you married her."

"I've given her _children_. These little girls are mine. You have nothing whatsoever to do with this. Which is why I would advise you to step aside."

"Don't come near her." As if to punctuate the point, Haji lifts a swathed Chiropteran claw.

Solomon's head assumes an imperious tilt like a hawk's. The air hums with a renewed sense of carnage.

Saya snatches at Haji's sleeve. "Haji—please. Don't do this."

Her Chevalier hesitates, and Solomon seizes the opportunity to push past him. Wrapping Saya's hand in his, he kneels before her, eyes full of pleading.

"Saya, please. Just come with me, and lets talk this over. I don't want to air our dirty laundry before your family this way. You know it isn't right. "

God, he knows exactly what words to needle her with.

_Family. Right._

"Solomon—we can talk later. Please. I'm not ready to—"

"Saya, you know my only concern is your happiness and well-being. I don't want to lose you or our little girls. Please." He rises, still holding her hand. "Come with me."

"S-Solomon—"

Haji shoves him off. "Leave her alone."

Solomon face smoothes eyeblink-fast into a frigid mask. "She is my wife, and I have every right to speak with her. The only one unwelcome here is _you_."

"Solomon, Haji! _Please_ _stop_!"

"Honestly Haji. If you had the slightest respect for Saya's wishes, you'd let us talk in peace. I think we've both seen her endure enough agony."

" _You're_ the one lacking respect. You deny everything she stands for, everything she _is_. You see her as nothing more than a prize or a bauble."

"You dare say that? To _me_? I sacrificed everything so I could be with her. I've molded myself inside out to suit her life and her needs."

"Then explain why she came to us in that state, battered all over?"

There is a growl of accusation in Haji's voice. Solomon stiffens, as if shamed into silence.

In Saya's arms, the baby whimpers. Her breast won't yield fluid anymore.

"Please," she begs. "Both of you. Stop."

The men continue to glare at each other, a million unspoken hatreds in their eyes. The air crackles with tension, blotting out everything around them. Saya may as well have vanished. Except their every gesture, every clenched brow and curled lip, shows how all thought is centered on _her_ , and always has been.

The silence stretches impossibly tight, a band on a triangle. Ready to snap at any moment.

Until Nathan steps in.

"All right. We've heard enough. You're giving Saya that twitchy-face. If she's upset, it'll clog up the baby's drink."

Solomon blinks, as if he's forgotten Nathan was even in the room. Beside him, Haji spares Saya an apologetic glance, as if saying, _I hadn't considered that._

Saya studies the baby's head, running her fingertips over the fine dark hair. A sinking dread fills her.

Just like Diva's twins, these children change everything. Their tiny forms hold a future, repercussions, as insurmountable as the pain she's endured to reach this point.

Nothing is simple anymore.

It never really was.

Nathan takes Solomon's arm. "Time to step out now. David looks like he's waiting for the earth to open up and swallow him. And if Kai's face gets any redder, it'll pop." (Kai grumbles unintelligibly, but doesn't look up.)

Solomon tries to pluck his hand off. "Nathan—"

"You heard me. Besides, you're a guest here with Saya's family. Try to behave like one."

Solomon turns to Saya. "Angel. Please don't send me away. I just want to speak with you."

"Solomon—"

"Please, Saya. I know I've done you injury, but I'm ready to do everything to make it up to you. At least give me a few moments of your time. That's all I'm asking for. _Please_."

"I—" She feels herself crumbling. His soft persuasive tone defeats her. The baby squirms, and she gathers her in, a little bolster in a gale. Unable to understand why he makes her feel so helpless, why she can't define any thought or emotion concerning him.

She knows him less as a person than a specter of white and black suits. Searing sensations, hooded dialogue and blows. Each memory as intricate and ambiguous as the man himself.

Yet for all these threads of understanding, he fills her head so completely.

Haji steps in. "Leave her alone."

Solomon ignores him, focused on Saya rather than his rival. Haji does the same. Both tight-lipped, restrained, yet imploring her with their eyes.

Saya glances from one to the other. Solomon's face is all gentle affection. Except for something in his eyes, a stymied wildness, that climbs higher every second. Even his aura bleeds with desperation.

If he corners her alone, he's not going to bully her. He's going to break down. Get on his knees and beg her to return. And in many ways that's more painful than the idea of him threatening her. It will call on emotions like empathy, guilt. Feelings she's already brimful with.

His hook is in her heart now. One yank, and she may end up back in Prague with him.

"Saya."

Haji sets a hand on her shoulder. The touch jolts her, electric. His head is tilted, regarding her with a soft-eyed intensity that cracks her right open. Every glance they ever shared, every battle and interlude, seems to reflect at her from his gaze.

He wears the same look as when he begged her to live, that night in the MET. The same as when he said he loved her, right before the roof buried him alive.

What had he said, before Solomon came in and tore her concentration away?

_This isn't irreparable._

Unthinking, her free hand covers his. His skin is cool on her palm, and the contact gives her a sudden courage. The simple gesture feels truer, more tender, than any declaration of devotion.

"Solomon—I promise we'll talk. But not now. I'm tired. I want to rest."

"But—"

"Please, Solomon." She keeps her eyes on the baby, fingers twining with Haji's.

Solomon starts to protest, but Nathan titters and places the second infant in Saya's arms. "Come on, Solomon. Let's get you some walkies."

"But I—"

"Come _on_. Take a fucking hint."

Solomon hesitates. His eyes are fixed on Saya and Haji's linked hands. Then Nathan tugs him, and, like a shell-shocked soldier, he lets himself be guided away. Saya waits for his looming presence to recede. The door clicks shut, and she hears his footsteps fade down the corridor.

Her chest is tight with the breath she's holding.

_Oh god._

_Do I really have the strength to do this?_

Then Haji gently squeezes her shoulder, and she remembers all at once how to breathe.

* * *

 _"Are you ever sorry?"_ Haji asks.

_"Sorry for what? God—Haji, I can't believe you let them do this to you."_

She draws a green bead from his hair. His head is heavy in her lap, hair spilling in black coils. The clay beads her nieces braided on each strand resemble multicolor sprinkles.

Saya sets the bead on the coffee-table with a _click_. She's already amassed a hefty pile.

 _"Next time the girls come to you with that_ look _in their eye, tell me, okay? I won't let them get away with things like this."_

_"It was either entertain them, or help Mao with the housework."_

This makes her smile. _"Oh. So you chose the lesser of two evils? Or just the less bossy?"_

Haji lifts a brow, letting the gesture speak for itself.

It's a moment she later remembers avidly. A tiny interlude out of so many. Sitting with Haji after a busy day at Omoro, skimming that tideline between conversation and sleep. Never making a future plan—since the war, she refuses to commit to that four-letter-word. But just delighting, with a simple, nearly childlike glee, in his presence at her side.

They'd been so comfortable together, those last few months. Familiar and intimate as twins. Holding his head in her lap, stroking his hair like a cat's, she could concentrate only on the preternatural stillness of him, the texture of his hair and his familiar scent. Minds in harmony, heartbeat and happiness seamlessly entwined.

She'd miss all that later, when she'd trade it for chaos with Solomon.

_"What am I supposed to be sorry for, Haji?"_

_"That…"_ Haji hesitates, as if chewing his own words. _"That we can't have children."_

She freezes, fingers sunk in his hair.

_"W-what?"_

He says it so softly, without tone or expression, that for a moment she can only replay the words, trying to pick sense out of them. His head is perfectly still in her lap. But she feels that subtle tension so particular to him—a tightly-reined pressure, like from a coiled spring.

_"Haji… what are you talking about?"_

He averts his gaze. Then:

_"It's nothing, Saya. It's just been on my mind."_

_"On your mind?"_ Despite centuries of being with him, she is flabbergasted. What brought this on? Surely nothing she said or did?

_"Haji… don't you think you're being a little premature? We haven't even, um—"_

_We're not even sleeping together yet._

_Why would you think—?_

Her gaze follows Haji's, to a tiny porcelain cat on the coffee-table. A gift from Solomon, from one of his and Saya's carnival outings.

Understanding blooms like letters of invisible ink across a page.

Oh.

_Oh._

_"Haji… what makes you think I even want children?"_ She keeps her voice soft, like the fingers running through his hair. But her gaze is watchful now, more questioning.

Haji hesitates, lips pursed. She wonders if he's aware of that little action of his, one that telegraphs: _I'm troubled, but mustn't tell._

_"I just see how you are with your nieces, Saya. They make you laugh, and forget about yourself, in ways I can never seem to do. It just makes me wonder—"_

_"My nieces?"_ Incredulity rises. _"Haji, I love the girls, but… I don't feel some kind of…_ urge _when I'm with them. They just remind me a little bit of how I used to be, that's all. Back when we were at the Zoo?"_

_"That is exactly what I mean, Saya. When you look at them, you do not think of the war, or fighting and suffering. They make you remember a happier time. And if you had children of your own—"_

She manages a nervous smile. _"You've really thought about this, haven't you?"_

_"It's just been on my mind."_

_"I know. You've said that before."_ She traces his feathery brow with a fingertip _. "Haji, what's this really about?"_

 _"Saya…"_ His face is full of misgiving.

_"It's all right. You can tell me."_

Neither of them is senseless to the irony in this conversation. Usually it is _Haji_ coaxing her out of her dark moods, her dark thoughts.

But Saya can't pretend, as she once did in the war, that Haji hasn't enough of his own.

Denied the succor of amnesia, of Long Sleeps, or even _sleep_ at all, he's doomed to always be _thinking_ —ideas and memories flitting without a resting place. It isn't as easy as it looks, keeping that mien of stoicism for her sake.

If anything, this seems a prime example.

_"Haji, there's no reason for you to think I'd want children. I-I really don't. Can you imagine me being a mother? I can barely look after myself."_

_"That was not how I meant it, Saya."_

_"What then? Do you really think I'd deserve children, after all the lives I've ruined?"_ She tries to laugh, but it wilts midway. _"No, that wouldn't be fair, would it? Death is all I've been good for."_

He sits up, facing her at eye-level. _"Having children, passing on another life… it might make you see a different side of existence, Saya. Not just of death."_

She frowns. _"So that's what this is about? You think I'm going to kill myself, unless I have some kind of obligation holding me down?"_

He flinches, whether at her quickness to judge him, or at her accusatory tone, she isn't sure.

 _"Saya. I did not mean it that way. I just want—"_ A pause. She so rarely hears him use the words _I_ and _want_ in the same conjunction. _"I just want you to be happy. I want you to have something worthwhile to live for."_

She bites her lip. His words fill her with a sudden tenderness for him. But at the same time, she intuits their subtext.

He seems to say, all unawares: _I'm afraid I'm going to lose you. I'm afraid I have no novelty or reprieve to offer you. No real reason to_ stay _with me._

Her eyes burn. But she manages a tiny smile.

_"Haji… I wouldn't leave you, just because we couldn't have children together. You know that."_

He falters, opening his mouth to contradict. She puts a finger to his lips.

_"I know you get a little nervous sometimes, about where our lives are going. I do too. Existing for an eternity… no gaps or endings… it's too scary to think about. But I can't think of anyone I'd want to face it with, except for you."_

Haji's eyes search hers for a moment. Then his shoulders relax.

But he can't resist another glance at Solomon's gift.

_"You might not always feel that way, Saya."_

_"Well, I do right now. And that's all I'm going to concern myself with."_ She threads her hand with his. Palm-on-palm, fingers twining tight.

He draws her in, and she curls against his flank, head dropping to his shoulder. His suit fabric is cool against her cheek, smoothly-scratchy. The skin beneath gives forth no heat, and she rolls her warm forehead against the material, as if to pass hers on.

_"Do… you feel sorry you can't have children, Haji?"_

_"What?"_

_"You've obviously thought about this. About a family, I mean. Do you feel sorry you can't have children?"_

He hesitates. _"Only when it comes to us, Saya."_

_"Meaning if things were different, you'd have liked to have them?"_

_"It… wouldn't have been a bad thing."_

She can't help her smile. _"I think you're more maternal than I'll ever be, Haji. But I guess that shouldn't surprise me. You've always been better at taking care of people than I have."_

_"That isn't true, Saya. It was your desire to protect other people that made you fight Diva in the first place."_

Languid and sleepy, she doesn't want to be reminded of that time. Instead, she manages a laugh. _"We both know I would've been in worse trouble if you hadn't been following me."_

He smiles faintly; not for her words, but the sound of her laughter. He seems to coax it from her so rarely.

Perhaps that's another reason he's so troubled about her leaving him.

_Oh Haji…_

She's seized by a burning urge to console him. Tightening her fingers with his, she presses her mouth to his neck, along that square spot beneath his jaw, where her kisses make him shiver.

He's never been an open book, but she's gotten good at catching all his quiet signals. The way he brushes his thumb along her nape in a silent question of: _can we be alone?_ How he curls his fingers spiderlike along her jaw to ask: _Can_ _I kiss you?_ How he meets her eyes during each feverish nighttime jouissance to say: _Am I going too far? Should we stop?_

So patiently, wordlessly understanding. How can he imagine she'd leave him for anyone else?

Yet even as she asks herself this, an image of Solomon's green eyes and sun-dappled hair flits by like a purring cat.

She shakes it off.

_"Haji, trust me. I'm perfectly content with just the two of us together. I am now, and I see no reason why it should change."_

Haji nods, gathering her in. But his eyes are fixed on Solomon's cat figurine.

_"No journey ever tracks in a straight route, Saya."_

" _You're right. It doesn't. It tracks in a circle."_ Squeezing his hand, she looks up into his eyes. _" And at some point, you're bound to come back to where you started."_

_"Saya—"_

_"Haji… look. Having children might be nice. And you're right; they would make me feel happier. But… you're the one I can't be without._ _I'm not sure of a lot of things—but that's one thing I can count on. It's not going to change."_

Saying so, she brushes the beaded hair from his face. He catches her wrist, pressing a kiss to her palm. She can feel him relishing in the warmth of her skin, just as she relishes the contrasting coolness of his. Ideas in harmony. Her heart beating as if for both of them.

 _"Haji… even when we're not always together, I'm still always thinking of you,"_ she whispers. _"I can't imagine doing this without you. As long as you know that, you don't have to worry about anything else. Even if we were separated, I'd still find my way back to you. I promise."_

* * *

 _She kept that promise after all,_ Haji realizes now.

_Despite everything, she came back._

Saya stands right beside him. But he fights the urge to snatch her closer. The relief beating through him is unreal. It's been over a week, yet he can't stop looking at her, touching her. He wants to sweep her up and bury his face in her hair, kiss her endlessly, breathe her in, until her every molecule is fused with his and there's no threat of her _ever_ leaving again.

Instead, he steals light arms around her, murmuring:

"Are you sure you'll be all right?"

Saya nods. Pressed between them, the babies squirm. One sighs in her sleep, then falls silent.

Saya hasn't named them yet. But they've already weaved themselves within the family's circle, Kai's wide-smiling absorption and Mao's minute-to-minute fussing, Julia and David's ever-cropping examinations.

Odd, how Haji gave them no thought before the birth. But now, they already seem an extension of his emotions and general framework of life—like Riku, or Kai, or Saya herself.

Against his will, he's charmed by them. They look just like Saya in miniature. They have her bright eyes, her tiny mouth that resembles a pink bow. Even their crying is an echo of her's. And like their mother, they are exacting, demanding. Their brief week of existence has already launched everyone into a swirl of activity.

But Saya still seems stoppered.

Haji knows why. He can sense her anxiety, her ambivalence. Encircling her small span in his arms, he hears her heart pumping sharply.

"Saya, you can simply allow Kai to talk with Solomon. As a mediator on your behalf."

He would do it himself. Except the merest glimpse of Solomon's face fills him with the urge to smash it in.

"I'm sorry, Haji. I have to do this. And it has to be in person. This is hard for me. You have no idea how much. But this is the only way." Saya pushes her hair off her face. The skin under her eyes is dark, bruised-looking. She hasn't slept all week.

Haji shies from wondering how much Solomon let her sleep _before_ the childbirth. The exhaustion in her gaze seems long-standing.

Saya's already told him all about her problems with Solomon, omitting nothing. Yet the details don't boil Haji so much as their fundament. Solomon tried to control her, make her what _he_ wanted, because he refused to see her as _herself_. That strength that Haji battened on—that brilliance and resolution—Solomon hadn't even _seen_ it.

Impossible to wrap his brain around. Saya is so beautifully herself. How can anyone love her for being anything _but_?

_I should never have let Solomon take her away._

But he can't say that. Gathers her in instead, kissing her and inhaling her warm breath through his cool lips. In her week at Kai's house, Solomon's hateful aromas have started fading. She smells more of herself now, of fried dumplings, baby powder and insomnia. The seaside breeze whips her bangs around her face.

The beach is deserted save for Saya and himself. Nearby, Haji hears the waves crashing on the shore.

In a few moments, Solomon will arrive here, to talk to Saya on neutral territory.

Saya wears a purple windbreaker for the occasion, simple and somber. Legs bare, boots at her feet. Her appearance is almost a ricochet to the final months of the war. Even with the babies cradled to her chest, she seems steely. More fighter than mother.

Except the bloodstone at her throat, which she clutches like an insecure child with a toy.

"Saya? Are you sure about this?"

"I am, Haji. There's no other choice." Her eyes meet his. "Please. Just trust me."

"If... that is what you wish, Saya. I promise not to interfere."

"Thank you." She gives herself to his embrace with fervid intensity, dotting kisses across his face in a style that seems purely French, but is really purely _Saya_. She's been painfully sweet since their reunion, all _pleases_ and _thank-you's_. Desperate to acquit herself in every way, as if she still doubts his forgiveness.

The idea galls him. _Of course_ he's forgiven her. He did so the very day he gave her the bloodstone. Soon, he'll have time to prove it. Allay her fears, do anything she requires or expects him to.

At least he _hopes_ so

Something about Saya's expression fills him with rising dread.

It isn't like when she asked him to kill her on the train. Nor when they first met Solomon at the Zoo, and she asked to be alone with him.

She looks like that night at the Yanbaru facility, after she'd killed her adoptive father. That same hollow-eyed renunciation. Even fogged by amnesia, she'd chosen to do the right thing instead of the easy one. That was a cardinal facet of her nature.

He understands this. Even as he isn't sure what, or _who_ , she intends to renounce today.

_What are you planning to do?_

He doesn't say it aloud. But Saya reads the misgiving in his eyes.

"Please, Haji. I'm going to try to do… the right thing. For all of us. You, the babies. And Solomon. Please, just trust me."

She looks so piteously earnest. He doesn't dare rattle her tenuous self-control for fear of shattering it.

"All right, Saya."

She presses her forehead to his chest. "You'll… wait here, won't you? I know I have to do this alone, but I'll feel better, knowing you're nearby. Please?"

"Of course." _You needn't even ask._

She burrows closer, the babies sandwiched between them. Her skin is hot with kindling anxiety. But as he holds her, she goes very still, one hand on her bloodstone. Eyes shut, as if battening on his pulse.

"I wish… we could just run away somewhere. Where we wouldn't have to deal with all my mistakes again and again. But I have to face the music now. I've kept running from it too long."

"We both have, Saya."

"Haji, none of this is your fault."

"I should never have let you go to him in the first place." He covers her hand with his. "I won't let you do this alone now."

Letting the bloodstone go, she gives his hand a squeeze.

* * *

"So… what? She and Solomon are holding _negotiations_ or something?" Sipping her bottled juice, Mao casts Kai a curious look.

Kai shrugs. "Seems that way."

"What about the babies? Why'd she take _them_ along?"

"Dunno. I guess she'd want Solomon to see them. They're his kids too."

"When is she going to _name_ them? I need to start monogramming quilts and stuff."

"Ask her yourself after this is settled."

"She didn't mention _at all_ why she ditched Solomon?"

"She's not the type to spill details. Anyway, it's not our business."

In fact, Saya barely told him two words about why she left Solomon, beyond explaining that it was over. Kai is concerned, but he knows better than to pry. This is just Saya's way of dealing with things. He still remembers, after the MET bombing, how tight-lipped she'd been about Haji's death. That was how Saya grieved. Intense, and intensely silent.

It was exactly how she loved.

_Whatever happened between her and Solomon… it must've been bad._

"Look, Mao. Get off Saya's case, okay? Just give her some space. That's what she needs right now."

Mao huffs. "Space? Oh right. Because that worked out _so well_ for her last time."

"What're you rabbiting about?"

"Think about it. After she came back from the war, all we did was treat her like a walking _time-bomb_. _Relax, Saya, take things piece by piece._ Why? Because we wanted to protect her from _life_? Please. It just left her feeling _twice_ as stumped. That's why I really think this whole deal's the best thing that could happen to her."

Kai blinks. "So… by your logic, Saya nearly dying during labor, leaving Haji high and dry, driving Solomon crazy and scaring the whole family shitless was a good thing?"

"Well, _sure_. Sometimes a sudden shock is best, Kai. At least now she's got a better feel of what she _wants_."

"And who died and proclaimed you the authority on this?"

Mao shrugs. "You're a guy, so I can't really expect you to notice these things. Do you have _any_ idea that Solomon was with Saya _all the time_ those few months? Even more than _Haji_. Her shacking up with him… it was all a matter of timing. Seizing the right moment. Which Solomon _obviously_ did."

"What're you talking about?"

"Isn't it obvious? Timing's what every relationship boils down to. People are mostly situational. They never think about what's not in front of them. If someone buzzes around you all the time, does favors for you, offers you free sex or rides home, it doesn't mean you _love_ them, right? It doesn't mean you're gonna end up theirs forever. But still, that's how a lot of relationships start out."

"Yeah. I can think of at least _one_ that wound up that way," Kai mutters.

Mao doesn't catch his sarcasm. "Well, that's why _Saya_ wound up with Solomon. Because he had the right chance to grab her. When her defenses were down. Haji didn't act fast enough, and he got blindsided."

"Point. But from the looks of things, she's back with Haji."

"Well, you know that old saying, don't you? _If you love something let it go; if it comes back it's yours for sure._ " She bats her eyelashes sweetly. "That's why I ended up back with _you_ , right?"

"Allergies have a way of creeping back too, Mao. Along with termites, cockroaches, and urinal tract infections…" But he's trying not to smirk.

The ringing phone cuts them short.

Kai answers. "Miyagusuku residence."

It's Haji.

His news wipes the smile off Kai's face.

"Saya and Solomon did _what_ —?"

* * *

Standing with the babies in each arm, Saya rehearses different ways to say goodbye.

_Solomon, I'm sorry, I can't do this._

_Solomon, sweetheart… I know I haven't been fair to you, but we can't be together anymore. It's just too hard._

_Solomon. It's finished. I'm not going back with you._

The light from the ocean in dazzling. She blinks away the bright spots in her eyes. The stretch of beach is deserted; she can't see Solomon anywhere. She uses the chance to get her bearings, hoping to postpone the inevitable.

This isn't going to be easy.

Not when a part of her actually misses Solomon enough to want to try again. Not when these children are his, and she can't imagine depriving them of a father. Not when she knows he loves her—and that nothing about love is _ever_ easy.

_Solomon, I never meant to hurt you. But I just can't do this. You have no idea how sorry I am._

Juggling each phrase, she holds off rising ambivalence. She wishes Haji were still here. She wants to feel his cool lips on her brow, his arms encircling her. No babies or broken marriages. She can pretend it never happened.

They're still living at the Zoo, basking in sunlight. They'd play cello and eat blackcurrant jam till the end of their days.

"Hello?" Her voice is tiny. She coughs, raising it to a summons. "Solomon!"

Her spine tingles on a _whoosh_.

Suddenly Solomon is right before her. Pale and composed, clad in a dark suit, one hand in coat pocket. The sun glares off his hair, igniting it to a glittering orange halo. Or like his head is on fire.

But against the glow, his eyes are voids.

"Saya."

He's upon her in an eyeblink, arms coming around her. She jerks back, then realizes he just wants to touch the babies. She surprises herself by relinquishing hold.

Things between them have been terrible these few weeks. But she can't deny him simple contact from his own children. That seems the cruelest cut of all.

Solomon cradles the babies, with an awkward two-handed tenderness. Saya sees him, sequence by sequence, fall in love—and it really is a sudden fall. One moment he's staring at these little girls, and the next, he is enraptured. Spellbound.

"They're so _tiny_ ," he whispers, as if he'd forgotten. His gaze makes her think of desert thirst and rainfall. "I kept seeing them, everytime I closed my eyes. They look so much like you."

She winces.

_That's not true._

_Each time I look at them, I can't stop seeing_ you _._

Up close, she takes in his chalky skin, the hollows beneath his eyes. He looks drained, bloodless. Like a… Vampyr. The past week hasn't been any kinder to him than to her.

But his eyes glow as he brushes his lips against the babies' faces. She feels him inhaling their sweetish milky scent. Thrice now, she's dreamt of him holding them that way. Sometimes in tears, accusing her of betrayal and abandonment. Other times sinking into blackness, pleading her to save him from drowning.

In each dream, she struggles to help—but a blazing chasm always opens up and swallows her, delivering her back to bed, wide-awake with tears on her face.

"Solomon?"

His head jerks up.

She opens her mouth, wanting to say, "I'm sorry." But what comes out is: "D-did you bring what I asked for?"

Solomon reluctantly returns the babies. They wake up, looking sad at the transfer. He looks sad too, but he turns without comment to something folded beside him—something she hadn't noticed him bring along.

A retractable baby-moses basket. Dark blue, like the color of the ocean. It reminds her of the one Diva kept her twins in at the MET—all swagged bows and ruffled gingham trim. Solomon sets it up on the stone steps with a quick efficiency.

Taking care not to touch him, Saya settles the babies into the basket's foam-padded interior. They fit, neat as giggling sardines. There's a mobile toy of some kind, attached on the hood above their heads. Two fish suspended in mid-air; swimming in parallel but opposite directions.

As she sets the babies down, her fingers brush Solomon's.

The contact is brief, but lethal. The heat of his skin infuses her like a toxin.

"How are you feeling?" Solomon asks, carefully neutral.

"W-what?"

"You seem tired. Have you been sleeping all right?"

"I d-don't know. It's been… strange, I guess. What about you?"

"I'm perfectly fine. I—" He stops. "You know what? I don't know either. Sometimes I am, and mostly I'm not. But why should it matter to you?"

She flinches.

_It matters to me._

_Of course it matters to me._

"Solomon—"

But he's already backtracking. "No. I didn't mean it like that. I've no right to talk that way to you. Not after everything else I put you through. I'm sorry."

"Solomon, I…" She has no idea what she wants to say.

The face she sees isn't Solomon's, streaked in gold-orange sunlight. It's that red-eyed, slavering monster in Prague, who nearly butchered her. All the past week, no matter how she tries to erase it, that horrible night keeps crashing back on her. She re-experiences each of his bites, his blows. Yet she can't make that blistering violence come together with how she feels for him. The amalgam is impossible.

Only knows that whatever she feels now, it isn't the same. Can't be.

She'd lived those two years with him as if in a world of black-and-white negatives. Each thought, each emotion, warped and undefined. But now the contact sheets are laid before her, allowing her to see everything with full color and clarity.

"Saya. Tell me what happened in Prague?"

"Wh-what?"

Whatever she expected him to ask, it wasn't this.

He glances away, right when she wants most to see the expression on his face. But a moment later, he's studying her sidelong. His gaze, so soft at first, is a viper's now.

"Tell me what I did to you. How did you put me under? I want to know everything."

She doesn't want to have this conversation. The guilt for how she treated him, already so close to the surface, growls like a vicious animal. Recounting that night might unleash it completely.

"Solomon, I don't—"

"Tell me, Saya. I want to know what happened before I woke up stuck to the carpet, with a bellyful of your blood."

"Please. What's the point? It's over now. If I could spare you all that—"

"We both know I'm the last person to appreciate your cosseting." His eyes narrow, reminding her all at once where her babies acquired their piercing gazes. " _Tell me_."

His voice tugs her surely as a lasso. She has to answer:

"I… can't explain how I knocked you out, Solomon. You were absolutely crazy, mauling everything around you. You didn't recognize me. Nothing I did or said could snap you out of it."

"Did I try to—?" He struggles to phrase himself in a way that won't involve use of the word _rape_.

She shakes her head at once. "No. No—you didn't."

"Are you telling me the truth?"

"I am. I-it didn't even seem to cross your mind." _You saw me more as a meal than a plaything._

"How did you sedate me?"

"I… can't explain it. It took hours, but it feels like it happened so quickly. All I can remember at some point… is reaching the corridor. Right outside your study. You were… latched on, at my shoulder. I tried to throw you off, but you wouldn't budge. You just kept biting and drinking and no matter how much I screamed, you wouldn't—"Her hands tremble. She balls them into fists. "I realized I had to put you under while I was still conscious. So I… started crawling. On my hands and knees. All I could see was the pattern on the carpet. How it kept changing. The texture would feel drier, less soaked in blood. That's how I knew I was moving forward. I kept watching the pattern change until I'd reached your supplies cabinet."

"And I kept draining you all the while?"

Her eyes squeeze shut. "Please, Solomon. I don't want to talk about it. You terrified me so much. I didn't know what to do. I kept saying your name. But you didn't even _hear_ me. You just weren't human anymore. You were—"

_Like how I was, when I went crazy in Vietnam._

_And it was all my fault._

Solomon absorbs the pain in her gaze. She sees his mouth tighten; hands clenching and unclenching.

"Saya. I—I'm sorry."

She winces but can't look at him.

"I really am. I swore to protect you, but instead… I nearly got you killed." His rubs his temples. "I'm so sorry. I don't know how many times, how many ways I can say it. It seems like the only thing I'm capable of feeling anymore."

Saya knows that emotion all too well.

The similarities between them, their situations and histories, are eerie. They may have been blood-kin in another life. But despite that, they're just a pair of strangers.

She isn't sure how that's possible. They seem to have started out in identical directions, motivated by an identical purpose. But somewhere along the line, one of them reversed course. Two lines running parallel, but in opposing paths. Unable to meet or co-exist.

She looks again at the fish on the babies' pram. Sometimes her whole life seems to be laid out like a strange object lesson.

"Saya, please come back with me."

She turns. Solomon's quiet plea is not unexpected. This is, after all, the reason for their meeting.

"Solomon—" When she visualized this conversation, she'd imagined herself speaking firmly, no hesitation. But now, all she manages is a whisper. "—I c-can't do that."

"Why? Why not?" Suddenly he's right before her.

She flinches. But he only puts his hand out, touches her chin.

"Saya, I know I did terrible things to you. I behaved like an absolute monster. But that's why I need to make it up to you. Nothing can be right in my life, unless I do that. Please, things are so different now. Our daughters make everything different."

"Solomon…" She keeps her eyes on the sea. Even the blinding sunlight is easier than meeting his gaze. "I'm sorry, but it's over. A lot of things between us… are over. I just can't put myself through it again."

"It doesn't have to be the same way, Saya. We can be better. Because this time, you will be there to point out where I'm going wrong. I swear, I will listen to you. I will value your opinion. Anything you say or want will be obeyed to the letter. Please, just come back with me."

"Solomon… it doesn't matter how much you change or I do. The—thing that makes us who we are—what makes you _you_ and makes me _myself_ —it just doesn't _click_. We…don't click."

Her words sound back to her, inept. But how can she explain that strange link that flows between them? The mutual attraction and thrall? How can she explain what went wrong— _is_ wrong—about their ill-fated liaison?

 _Star-crossed,_ she remembers reading once at the Zoo. Perfect matches, yet pre-destined for disaster.

"Don't click?" Solomon shakes his head, disbelieving. "Saya, how can you say something like that? Have you forgotten everything we had together? We _clicked_ in every way two people can. You gave me everything I'd ever wanted—I can't think of a better partner, a better companion or lover than you were for me. What we were for _each other_. And it hasn't changed. We can be that way again."

Saya's eyes burn. But it isn't from the harsh sunlight. "Solomon…I'm sorry. I'm just so sorry. It's over."

"Saya, please don't say that. The least you could do is give us a second chance. Please—stay for another year with me. That's all I'm asking for. A _year_. We'll learn to understand each other better. And if you still feel that nothing's changed, you're free to go. I promise I'll let you leave like a gentleman."

"No, Solomon. That's just going to make things worse. What's the point? You don't understand me, and I can't understand you. That's just how we are."

"And you don't think we can change? Saya, I shifted my _allegiance_ for you. I gave up the ties in my _blood_ to be with you. What greater change could there possibly be? And if that isn't enough for you, I will try harder. For your sake, for our daughters, I will turn myself inside-out. Just come back to me. _Please_."

"Solomon, I'm sorry. I can't do that. My family's here. My friends. This is where I belong. This is my home."

"And what about _my_ home—which is _you_. My friend, my family—you are all those things to me. My entire _world_. How am I going to do this without you?" He takes her hands, squeezing them imploringly. "Saya, I promise, we won't have to repeat this again. I won't bully or punish you. I just want you to come back. Please—I miss you _so much_."

"I can't do that, Solomon. I'm sorry." She tries to draw her hands away. "Nothing's changed about the way I feel for you. But a lot of other things have. I just can't go back to the way we were. We're no good for each other. We're too different in ourselves."

His eyes narrow. "And what about our daughters? At least think of _them,_ if you can't think of your vows to me? Do you really mean to deprive me of them too?"

"Of course not. But that has nothing to do with _us_. We may be their parents, but we're Saya and Solomon, first and foremost."

"You are their _mother_ , first and foremost. Tell me, Saya. What have you planned for them? What sort of future do you hope to provide them here? Schools, clothes, food? Have you thought of any of that? Or in your callous disregard for me, do you hope to punish them too?"

Her pulse spirals. " _Punish_ —? Solomon, _no_! I won't let you do this. I won't let you turn the situation black and white so I'm made the criminal. Things between us can't work. It's no one's fault, but that's just how it is. I won't have you dragging our daughters into this."

"I'm not dragging them into anything. But I love them, and I love you. I won't have you ruining _their_ lives out of your desire to spite _me_."

"What makes you think I'm ruining their lives? I love them as much as you do. But I will not raise them in a home where there's no harmony or trust! That isn't fair to them!"

His eyes light with an anger equal to her own. "Whereas being raised in a broken home with a step-father—one who can barely make ends meet— _is_ fair? Saya, look me in the eye and tell me this doesn't feel wrong. Tell me that Haji really accepts these children as his own. Accepts _you_ as you once were."

"I…" Saya's heart hammers, ambivalence rising like lava.

God, why does this keep happening? She'd come here to tell him it was over, bid him goodbye. It wasn't supposed to be like this. His voice, his very _presence_ , makes her mind a blur. Makes her shaky and unsure at every turn.

"Saya? Look at me. Please." He takes her face in both hands. Against her will, she's forced to meet his eyes. The contact switches some invisible combination inside her, wired to a time-bomb of grief.

All it once, she's in tears.

His eyes widen. "Saya—I'm sorry. I didn't mean to put you on the spot. I'm just so worried about you. I don't want you or our children to suffer."

"Solomon. Let me go. I-I don't want to talk like this."

"Angel—forgive me if I'm being harsh. I just want you to come home with me. Why can't you—"

" _I said let me go_ —"

For a moment they struggle senselessly, more tug-of-war than duel. Evading his clasping palms, she doesn't know what she's saying anymore, protests, curses, accusations, all spilling out and tangling in sobs. Words she's never said before, not even in shouts or whispers, except at the edge of sleep, when her defenses are lowest.

He absorbs each syllable, tense and pained, but keeps pulling her to him, murmuring pleadingly, until she's forced to fight him off. They scuffle in angry tight silence, her efforts amplifying to shoves, then blows, each one bouncing like rubber off his flesh, staggering but never deterring him. And then he wrenches her in, and she whips out one of Haji's red-jeweled daggers, hid with tempered caution for this situation.

It plunges hard into his shoulder. Blood spills, but he doesn't notice, because she's not struggling against him anymore. They've toppled back on the sand, her on top of him, and she's clinging now, wrung and sobbing, hands fisting his coat. Her knuckles throb; she wants to go on hitting him forever, beating him to a bloody pulp and pouring all her rage into his body.

Except it's all fizzled out now. Dissolved into blinding tears.

She doesn't know what's happening. But Solomon has his arms around her, head pressed to hers, and he's shaking as much as she is, half the sobs between them no longer her own.

"Saya. Saya." His voice trembles. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for everything. I want to be better for you—I really do. But I can't do that if you aren't there with me. _Please_ just come back."

_I can't._

_You know I can't._

But all that emerges is a sob.

He sits up, gathering her in, and she makes no resistance, not even at the first velvety press of his lips on her face. Fighting not to succumb to his touch, to those sensations rising as feverish and invasive as malaria.

That is what he _is_ to her. A fever. One that will scar her for life, unless she eradicates his influence on time.

"Saya, I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry for all the things I did. I love you so much, but I'm no good at doing it right. I've never had the chance—or the practice. I need you to teach me. I can't _be_ right at all, unless you're with me." He kisses her, over and over, and suddenly it's too much like her parting with Haji.

He'd held her exactly this way, with the same stymied longing. Different as both men are, differently as they love—their capacity to love is _exactly_ the same.

Except for one base difference. Where Haji held her out of comfort, renunciation—Solomon does so out of desperation, pleading. He's not strong enough to let her go—to give out of love as much as he receives. He's too damaged inside to understand how.

This is what his past, his life as Diva's Chevalier, has done to him. This is who he is.

Nothing she says or does now can change that about him.

"Solomon. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She chants it over and over. "I can't be with you. We're just not right for each other. You said before that you fell in love with me at the Lycee. Except back then, I had no idea of my past, or who I even was. And I'm just not that person anymore. I couldn't be if I tried. Whoever you think you're in love with—she isn't _me_."

"Saya—for God's sake, don't say that. Doubt my motivations and promises, but not the way I feel. I love you. I always have."

"Solomon…" Her hand is pressed to his chest. She can feel his heart hammering under his coat. Haji's silver dagger still protrudes from his shoulder. The surrounding material is soaked with blood; his shirt and collar is pink with it.

She hesitates, then gently draws the dagger free. Solomon presses his lips to her forehead, not making a sound. Through a rip in the fabric, she can see his skin, pale and smooth except for the wound. It closes up at once, a bead of blood rolling like a tear.

Not a single part of him she hasn't known. Hasn't laid claim to with mouth or hands. They'd been so wrapped up in each other once; sailing on bliss and pheromones a mile high.

Until Life intruded on her little fantasy, exposed it for the escape-hatch it was.

She can't run from it anymore.

Lifting her head, she kisses Solomon on the lips. He snatches her close, skin radiant with pleading. To a bystander, the embrace might easily be mistaken for a passionate reconciliation. But they can both sense it isn't.

She's only kissing him goodbye.

She knows Solomon hears everything she's trying to tell him, throttled back yet let loose in the salty contact of lips and teeth. Can tell he understands her resolution, her determination, by the way he draws back to stare at her.

"You're… really going to leave?" She hears the unspoken _me_ , but doesn't trust her voice enough to answer.

Instead she gently detaches from his arms, gripping the dagger tight.

He winces, cradling his head as if he's sick, or about to fall over.

"Please. Don't do this."

"I have to, Solomon. I'm sorry. I've made my choice."

He lifts his head. The despair in his eyes half-blinds her. " _Please_. What am I going to live for without you?"

"You'll be fine. You'll be all right." But she's tastes bitter perfidy in her words. She's ripping every shred of happiness from his life—decimating the entire tapestry of his existence.

This isn't a valediction. It's a death sentence.

"I'll _never_ be all right, unless it's with you, Saya. You know that. There's nothing _right_ or _good_ about me. I've only ever wanted to be those things for _you_. If you go, I'll have nothing left. Only coasting on for eternity as that worthless _nothing_ I've always been."

"Don't say that. You've survived this far. You saved me even when there was no reward in it for you. I know you can get through this." She lays a hand on his arm, gently squeezing.

"I can't. You know I can't." He offers her a sick rueful smile. "I'm not as brave as you are. I've spent my entire existence running from myself. Every second I spent was entirely in the present, because I was terrified to imagine my future. I could never even _see_ one. But when I look at you, I _do_. Something more than emptiness and death. Except that's all I am, and it's all I know. Without you, it still is."

"Solomon—" Her fingers tighten on his arm. She wants to shake him until he sees things differently. Make him understand he _can_ survive without her.

Except he's breaking right before her eyes. Not like a boy breaks, but like a man does. Silently and inexorably on the inside.

Her throat burns. Instead she draws him into a hug. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything I did to you. Every last bit. But there can't be a future for us, if we don't even know what _we_ really want. All we'll end up with is false starts leading to nowhere."

"I don't care about that. Not as long as you're with me." Solomon's hands on her waist are warm and moist. But they're not holding her captive so much as just holding her. "Please, Saya. You'll be sending me straight to Hell if you do this. What's going to happen to me without you? Everything I suffered—every terrible thing I ever did—how am I going to face up to it? You know I'm not strong enough to do it alone."

"You'll be all right, Solomon. You'll be just like you used to."

"What? Damned and _dead_?" The last word ends on a sob.

He's still crying, but in an entirely different way. No longer plunged in childish anger of self-pity. Just… despair. Skin shiny with tears, a golden curl pasted to his cheek.

The last time she'd seen anyone look that shattered, it was her reflection, after she'd thought Haji was dead.

"Solomon…" Every cell in her body aches for him. She wants to draw him in, rock him like a child. He's her sister's Chevalier—her blood-offspring—but he seems more like _her's_ now. It's her to whom he's sworn allegiance—her charge and responsibility.

_Mother and lover._

She finally understands what that means.

"Please, Saya. Don't go." His lips press to her face with an inarticulate insistence, soft curls tickling her skin. He'd done that all the time when they were in bed. Kissing her again and again in such excesses of affection. His sweetness had been irresistible to her. Delicious. She'd fed on his warmth as if on some powerful rekindling drug. Able to forget her past, Haji, almost _completely_.

But never for very long.

"Solomon. I'm sorry. It's over." She presses close one last time, kissing him on both salty cheeks. He clings to her, pleading without words, but her mind is made up. She may love him—and it is _so much_ —but it isn't the right kind of love. It isn't the kind to sustain or save either of them.

Memory of the MET flashes. Diva crumbling to pieces before Saya's eyes as she'd screamed _take me with you, take me with you!_ How desperate she'd been then, to join her sister in oblivion.

Instinct tells her this is exactly where she's sending Solomon now. But this time, she refuses to follow.

"Solomon—I'm sorry I didn't love you better. I'm sorry for how I treated you. There isn't a second I'm not going to regret it. But I'm not the one sending you to Hell. Everything you did in your past— _you're_ responsible for it. You have to account for it on your own. I can't change that, or spare you from the pain. Just like you can't spare me from mine. I'm sorry."

"Saya—" He tries to hold onto her. But she pulls firmly back.

Behind them, one of the babies gurgles, starting to cry. The other picks up the noise like a contagion, joining in. Saya hesitates, then rises for the basket. Putting out her hands, she tries to soothe them, even as they cry harder.

Then Solomon trails after, leaning in and starfishing both palms flat over their bellies.

The contact works like a charm. The babies, as if lulled into a spell, fall silent.

Saya watches them giggle, flailing tiny hands for him. And despite his tears, Solomon manages a smile. The effect is like sun beaming through overcast clouds.

In that moment, she makes her decision.

"They're yours, Solomon."

"Of course they are." He bites his pliant lower-lip. "But… it's you they resemble most. I'm so glad for that. Better to be what you are than… the opposite."

"No. I mean—" Her voice is choked. She has to swallow before speaking. "I want you to have them."

"What?"

He turns, incredulous.

"I know how much I've hurt you, Solomon. I can't take it back, but I can't let you to go back alone, either. It's… horrible to be alone. I know how much."

"What are you saying?" But by the frozen look on his face, he already knows.

Her eyes burn. "They're your daughters. I know you love them as much as I do. I want you to take them. I think you'll be better for it. All three of you. Just… don't cosset and lock them up, the way you did with me. Let them have a little freedom."

"Saya." His voice wavers. "Are you serious?"

"I am. Go on. Take them. Your little girls. I know how much they matter to you."

He hesitates. Then, with a dry swallow, he picks up the basket. The babies babble happily, craning their fingers for him. He regards them with the same pindot intensity Saya has seen him bestow on _her_. Yet softer somehow, more unquenchable. _Purer._

If anyone can ease his inherent loneliness, she's sure these children can.

"I won't let you leave empty-handed, Solomon. I don't want you to be hurt anymore. Please believe that. I'm sorry for everything."

"Saya—" Solomon's expression bears… not horror, but an awe that is almost sister to it. So many emotions playing in his eyes, it's a wonder he regards himself as empty.

He's full of emotion. Composed of nothing _but_.

"You're sure about this?" he whispers.

"I am." The lie is a razor on her tongue.

Her whole body burns, a flesh-and-blood scream of _no no no!_ Wanting to grab her children back, cradle them forever. A primal instinct beyond love or grief. It's like that moment where Diva crystallized—she can practically _feel_ something inside her crumbling in turn.

But Solomon is looking at her, and she has to meet his gaze. He reaches out, brushes the backs of his fingers over her cheek. She sees the tears glistening on his hand.

"You don't want me to take them, do you?" he asks.

"It doesn't matter what I want, Solomon. They're your children too. After all I've done, I have to give something back to you."

He swallows, face averted. She senses that there is a lot he wants to say, but doesn't dare to. Instead his hand closes on hers, lifts it to his lips. The kiss is a thanks, an exoneration, and a farewell.

"You've given me more than you'll ever realize, Saya."

A split-second later, there is a sharp harsh gust of wind. Her eyes are shut, but she feels sand-grains hitting her face. Opens them a moment later, and knows without looking that both Solomon and the babies are gone.

Gone.

She let him take her children.

The sun dips into the horizon. sky deepening to a dreamy purple as the first stars speckle the night. Her fingers tighten on Haji's dagger. But the cool smooth heft isn't enough to soothe her.

_What… have I done?_

The shock seems to renew itself between one blink and the next. Her surroundings waver; for a second she wonders if her Long Sleep is upon her. Then empty air hisses past her ears; she pitches face-forward without realizing it, her babies' faces swirling behind her eyes.

In the next breath, a pair of arms lock around her.

"Saya?"

She lifts her head. "H-Haji…"

Her Chevalier gently draws her upright. "Are you all right?"

"I let him take the babies, Haji."

"I saw, Saya. I was near enough to hear everything."

"They're gone. My babies are gone." She says it slowly, as if reciting something off the head of a tombstone. The strange sensation, of something atrocious having befallen her, something that will cut her for decades on end, is starting to creep in.

"Saya… what made you decide to give them away?" he whispers.

"I had to do it, Haji. I'd hurt and ruined him enough."

"But can you honestly trust him to—"

"Please—" She squeezes his hands, to keep from sinking into that numb maw within. "Please don't argue with me. I had to do it. It was the only way I could pay him back."

Haji falters. He is struggling so hard to be fair, to see all sides to this situation, that all the lines in his face are strained. "I understand, Saya."

She presses her forehead to his chest, concentrating on the slow thub of his heart. Knowing implicitly that she'll collapse if she tries to think of anything beyond that, to shoulder the weight of her loss.

"I said we'd be okay, didn't I? I said we'd be okay if it was just the two of us. We don't really need children." But she seems to be reminding herself more than him.

"You did, Saya. But—"

"What?"

"Nothing's the same until you've truly grasped it, is it?"

His voice is strange. She lifts her head, finds his face pensive in the twilight.

"You… wanted to keep the babies?"

"They were your children." The reply seems to convey everything he hadn't yet said—and can never say again.

Somehow it is this, more than anything, which breaks her down. A ragged sob works its way out of her, followed by another, then another, until she's helpless to do anything but bury her head into Haji's coat and keen.

She's cried everyday since returning from Prague. Sometimes guilt for her treatment of Solomon, sometimes rage for how he treated _her_ ; other times sadness for abandoning Haji, using him so heartlessly, even though he's assured her a thousand times that she's been forgiven.

But…

This is something else completely.

She's freed herself from an unhappy marriage, returned to the man she really belongs with. Won her long-due reprieve. But it doesn't feel like she's won anything at all.

If there's one thing her affair with Solomon taught her, it is that nothing in life is black and white.

There are no real winners here.


	30. Numbness

I have felt what you have felt.

Trying to live while wanting every second to die. Trying to carry on with life, when everything that was your life has been torn apart.

But what would taking your children away make me?

More alive? Less dead?

I hate paradoxes. Better be one or the other, instead of neither.

I had my fifteen minutes of being perfectly alive, after all.

After an eternity of numbness, it is better than nothing.

_To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all._

* * *

_"According to your aura,"_ says the old woman. _"You are already dead."_

_"I beg your pardon?"_

_"I see it in the color of your aura. Your death was long ago. This body you inhabit now, the blood running through it, is not your own."_

Solomon doesn't bat an eyelid.

_"I see."_

Nathan had recommended this mystic as bona fide, insisting Solomon meet with her. The younger Chevalier had been skeptical at the time. Now, in the smoke-filled tavern of their rendezvous, his annoyance builds.

_Nathan obviously put her up to this._

_Dear God, such a waste of time. I've several other appointments to—_

_"Focus on me, young man,"_ the woman interjects. _"Not on your meetings with Japanese bankers."_

Solomon is startled by the accuracy of her remark. But he brushes it off.

_Lucky guess, is all._

_" I'm curious."_ His polite tone never wavers. " _If I'm supposed to dead, how am I still here?"_

_"You are here as only homeless spirits are. Transient. Without beginning or destination."_

_"Ah."_

_Yes, Nathan most_ definitely _put her up to this._

The old woman's eyes are green, like Solomon's. But like bright glass candy rather than winter ferns. _"You doubt my word. Yet the truth is clear to both of us. You are submerged between worlds. Neither of one, nor the other."_

_"If so, perhaps you know of how to alleviate my dilemma?"_

_"Change your color."_

_"What?"_

_"Every spirit has an aura. And every aura has a different color. Yours is hard to fix on. It is drenched in blood."_

Solomon offers no visible reaction. But his nails whiten on his glass.

_"…Blood?"_

_"Spilled by your hand. You try to conceal it over a cloak of white. Like a flag of truce, hoping for a new beginning. But white is not the true color for you. Soon, the blood beneath will seep through. Everyone will see you for what you are."_

Solomon doesn't answer.

 _I'm absolutely_ sure _Nathan put her up to this. Otherwise…_

 _There can't_ be _an otherwise._

The old woman looks him up and down. _"You've held hands with Death. You've seen and known it intimately. Yet to ward it off, you try to recreate your beginnings. But you're too far-gone to return to the womb of life. You must accept that. Your only route from hereon is forward."_

_"But… what does this have to do with changing colors?"_

The old woman's eyes meet his.

_"You've seen Death. You know what color it is. You should acknowledge its influence by wearing its mark."_

_Change color._

Solomon thinks nothing of the meeting until years later, on the eve of his renunciation of Diva. After deciding, once and for all, to shed the white suits he wears, and mark the death of a forgotten era.

 _My life is all for_ Saya _now._

 _She_ is _all that's left in Life..._

_"You said her name again, Solomon."_

Diva's voice seems to flare from her soul. A brilliant chilling flame.

_What?_

Solomon lifts his head.

The room is flooded in azure twilight. The curtains at the window resemble overhanging frost. The light suits Diva, turning her bare skin pearly. Standing by the window, she regards Solomon with a disquieting intensity.

_"What do you mean, Diva?"_

_"Sister Saya. You've been thinking about her."_

_"Saya…?"_

Gingerly, Solomon rises from the floor. His skin is sticky with his own drying blood, spilt from Diva's nails and fangs. Puddles of it smear the carpet.

He recalls this moment as the last time he and Diva were ever physically intimate. He'd once reveled in every moment he could spend with her this way. But now, he was all too glad it was over. The pressure of performance had been _unbearable_. He'd struggled every moment to concentrate, stay present. Trying not to let his thoughts drift or his tongue slip—looking at Diva's blue eyes repeatedly, as if to remind himself who this was.

And _wasn't_.

He wonders if Diva could sense his turmoil. Since her return from Red Shield's sinking ship, she's been so aloof. As if she's about to tangle with the breeze, sprout wings and fly away. Solomon generally associates that behavior to the approach of her Long Sleep. But in this case, he knows it's more.

Knows it _intrinsically_ , but no longer cares enough to ask.

He might have, another lifetime ago. Before he'd met _Saya_. But since she's drifted into his life, nothing's been the same. She's imprinted herself into his pores, his very _thoughts_. He's become a carbon copy of himself; a substitute for the real thing. Playacting passion and loyalty, and doing it well.

But he can't fool Diva.

He's lost his ability to satisfy her—something she's let him know, by implacable glares and empty smiles. Her mouth forms a sneer everytime she looks at him. As if she can't decide whether to spit or laugh.

Which should sting, at least a little. To his pride, if nothing else.

Except, to be perfectly honest, Diva's lost the ability to satisfy _him_ too.

He's sailing in another direction, a new figurehead atop his life's yacht. Identical in all appearances to his Queen—but with brown eyes instead of blue.

Oh, what a difference a simple color makes.

 _"Thinking about Saya again?"_ Diva purrs.

_"What?"_

_"Saya. You say her name whenever you close your eyes. You whisper it when you think no one can hear you. But I can. I wonder if you dream of her."_

_"Diva, I…"_

_"Chevaliers don't dream. Isn't that what you're going to say?"_ Diva tips her head back, unleashing a song that vibrates like melodious thunder. The very air thrums with it. Solomon's bones sing.

He hopes, as his Queen twirls balletically across the room, that she's mocking him.

_I didn't say Saya's name._

_I was…_

_"Were you sleeping, inside?"_ Suddenly Diva is right at his shoulder. _"You must have been sleeping. Because that's when everyone dreams. I know Chevaliers dream too. Nathan of his beautiful stage, Karl of flames in Vietnam, James of me, but not of me at all. Amshel dreams too, but Ssh. That's a secret."_

 _"Diva…"_ The look in her eyes, of lucid, almost perfect sanity, is painful.

_I wish… you were like this all the time._

_But you aren't, which is why I wish you weren't like this at all._

At least then, he'd have no glimmers of ever-renewing hope. Hope that she would get better, that something in her would click, so she'd fit into his life.

Give him something to live _for_.

_"I don't live for you, Solomon."_

It's as if she can read his mind. But still know nothing at all.

_"Because I'm broken inside. I know I'm broken. Everyone else knows it too. You can't fix me."_

He shuts his eyes.

_I know I can't._

_That's why I've given up trying. That's why…_

A white hand starfishes his cheek. He feels her pulse beating in each fingertip; a cruel mimicry of his own. How can two people be so in-synch, so entwined in blood and flesh, yet still so apart?

 _"You can't fix sister Saya either, Solomon."_ There is cool disdain in her voice. _"No one can. She'll have to do that by herself. From the inside."_

He has no answer.

Diva spreads her palm across her belly. Her eyes slip shut, dreamy. _"I need to be fixed too. I will be. Then I won't have to dream anymore. Everything I want will be right in front of me."_

Solomon has no idea what she means.

_"Diva—"_

She hums, as if she can't hear him. Fingers combing through his hair with an almost maternal air. Solomon tenses. When she gets into these mothering moods, there's no telling what she'll do next. She can go from sweetness to savagery in the space of a heartbeat.

" _Do you know what a chameleon is, Solomon?"_

_"A chameleon? Of course I—"_

_"They keep changing color, don't they? Red, to blue, to green. Sometimes even white. You can never tell what color_ they _are. You can't really…_ see _them."_ She tugs his hair sharply. Solomon fights not to wince. _"You remind of me of that, Solomon._ _No one really_ sees _you. You don't_ let _anyone see you. Because you don't have any color of your own. It's kind of sad. Do you want to stay that way forever?"_

_No._

_Of course I don't._

_"No?"_ Her eyes open, a manic blue. _"Then you should change color once and for all, shouldn't you?"_

Her words resonate like an electric surge, long after she giggles and flutters away. Off to play with Karl in the atrium, no doubt. Maybe rip up her dolls and spill eerie melodies into the air.

He keeps hearing the words, long after he's returned to his business with Cinque Fleshe. The days and months pass in a blur—but her voice remains distinct.

_Change color._

Nathan often says that there's a method to Diva's madness. His Queen gravitates, despite her superficial flippancy, toward nothing but freedom. She lives each moment with a brutal innocence—no thought of regret or consequence. This is what makes her _Diva_.

_It's about time I imbibed something other than scars from her influence._

And so, as if at her twisted behest, he finally… _changes color_.

On that day, before his fateful visit to Diva in New York, an enormous clarity fills him. One might call it an epiphany, except it is far more than that. It is a renewed understanding of himself, of his life.

If that is indeed the word for it now.

In Paris, he ties up all his overhanging obligations. Driving to a brunch in town, he stops at signals in faceless streets, swerves past anonymous pedestrians, with the sense that no further calamity can befall him. His car feels like an automated toy—he does no more than rest his hands on the wheel and will himself to his destination.

He's very charming at the brunch given by the wife of some banker. Valuable colleagues of his, whose names aren't of value now. He laughs, and entertains them with anecdotes from his work, his childhood, and he looks happier than anyone can remember.

There's something different about him, even as no one can place how or why.

 _"You're certainly in high spirits, Solomon,"_ a woman teases, clutching his arm. _"There's something different about you. But I can't tell what."_

He chuckles, answering, _"Nothing is different at all."_

_But soon, everything will be._

At the office, he works with more enthusiasm than ever. His secretary notices, and wonders. His mood is vibrant, antic; his eyes shine like a man who has just found a new purpose in life—or nothing left anymore to lose. When the workday comes to a close, and the secretary packs to go, Solomon Goldsmith, for the first time in her years working for him, shuts his office before she does.

He smiles and chats happily with her as they ride the elevator down. They bid each other goodbye at the main gates.

Now, the secretary stands to watch her boss race away up the street. It is only as she sees him get in the car that she realizes what is so different.

He is wearing black.

* * *

Saya is still crying, little sobs rising like electric pulses.

Haji keeps a loose arm cinched around her waist. Her own fingers are threaded into the buttonhole of his open coat. She's walked rubber-legged with him down the street to Kai's house, her tears scenting the air.

Her children are gone, and the fact is only just sinking in.

Haji half-wants to pick her up, carry her like a child. Omoro is but ten feet off, but he doesn't want her to go there yet. She'll have to endure her family's questions about the babies then. A burden shared is a burden halved, but Saya doesn't work that way. Making her recount the children's transfer will only redouble her grief.

"Saya. Do you want to sit down for a while?"

She shakes her head. A sob escapes her, almost a gasp, and then she's quiet. Haji can feel her holding her breath.

He wants to coax her somewhere dark. Make her drink some of his blood, rock her in his arms and hum into her neck until she's calmed down, slipped into merciful sleep. Her sadness burns him on a level below conscious speech.

She's given her _children_ away, and he knows the loss is only going to escalate as time passes. His former lifestyle has taught him that pain often strikes long after the disaster does.

It was that way for him when Saya married Solomon.

He won't pretend to imagine how it must feel for Saya.

"I'm sorry, Haji. I had to give them up. I'm so so sorry."

"It was your choice, Saya. I'm the last person you need to be apologizing to. Right now, I just want you to get some rest."

She shakes her head, but he's not sure for what. Then she's burrowing closer to him, little fingers tightening into his coat. "Kiss me. Kiss me so I know I haven't lost you too."

"Saya. What're you—?"

"Please, Haji. Just shut my mind off. I'm too tired to cry anymore. I'm too tired to think about any of this. _Please_."

"Saya—"

Then her mouth claims his, tasting of fever and tears and the faintest bit of _Solomon_. It sparks in Haji the wild impulse to wrench away. But Saya makes one of her little kitty moans, quivering and flowing against him, and his arms come around her without thought.

Her kisses are so… different now. He won't call them an _enhancement,_ because he's always loved anything Saya's ever done with him; there is no way to sub-categorize what is, in his mind, perfect bliss. But this is stark enough to make him want to stop, shake her. Ask her who she thinks she's really kissing. Remind her who is and _isn't_ here.

Except she doesn't seem to be thinking of anyone at all. She's just trying, with all her might, to _forget_. To make _him_ forget.

And, with her warm lips and soft aroma enveloping him, Haji realizes he already has.

Slowly, the buzzing tension leaves her, spiraling down instead of up, until at last they're almost perfectly still, except for flickering tongues and shared sighs. Finally Saya draws back to drop her forehead on his chest.

"Haji—I'm sorry. I'm sorry I had to drag you into all of this."

"It doesn't matter, Saya."

"It _does_ matter. Don't you see that? It always has. If I'd been smarter from the beginning, none of this would've happened!"

"Saya..." He watches the grief re-coalesce across her face; reminders of the babies, of Solomon, striking her like rain-squalls.

He'd keep holding her, kissing her forever, if it meant she'd never have to spend another second in pain again.

"Saya? Haji? Is that you?"

Startled, they turn.

Kai steps out of Omoro's door, heading for them. Automatically, Saya tenses; as if preparing to plunge into battle.

"Kai, I—"

Approaching them, Kai takes her shoulders. "Saya—you have to come inside."

"What? Kai—"

"Just get inside. I have to tell you something."

"What's happened?" Haji asks. A strange premonition prickles his scalp. Too soon to discern whether it is dread or anticipation.

"Just get in. Shit—you both look like zombie-movie refugees. I'll heat up some blood for you. Come on."

Saya frowns, even as she allows Kai to steer her indoors. "Kai, what—"

She freezes.

Drifting after her, Haji sees all at once, what Kai is so agitated about.

The babies— _Saya's_ babies—are inside. Both in a blue basket at Omoro's counter, fast asleep. Mao leans over them, face a smug little moue.

"Well, you two sure took your time. Kai was starting to think you'd skipped out of town like convicted felons."

Wide-eyed, Saya takes in the babies. "How—how did—?"

"Solomon dropped them off," Kai explains. "About forty minutes ago. With boxes of all their things. He's going to send you temporary orders for support and custody by next week. But once everything's cleared up, they're all yours."

"Wh-what?"

"He's letting you have them. He'll pay full child-support, but they'll be living here with you. He brought them back." Kai sounds as if he's repeating what Solomon might have said, but stumbling over the specific words.

Saya doesn't move. Her shock makes the air vibrate. Behind her, Haji asks the first question that comes to mind.

"Why... would he do that?"

Kai pauses, glancing from Saya to the babies. "He said something about them needing their mother. That—he'd grown up without one, and that he'd never be any good to them on his own. He said they were Saya's—that they were your's, I mean. He wanted you to keep them."

"Keep them?" Saya's voice wavers. She still hasn't moved to touch the children. Haji has the acute sense that she's still half-sure they're not real.

"Look—don't expect me to remember everything he said. It all happened in fifteen minutes. And you know how Solomon talks. I can't make shit out of half of it. But he just said that… he was sorry he'd hurt you, and that he couldn't stand the idea of doing it anymore. He said you deserved a life in the light. That it was where these kids belonged. He couldn't give them the same thing. Because… he was headed in the exact opposite direction. Or something like that. I don't know."

"The _point_ is," Mao cuts in. "He's brought your twins back, and he's going to foot all their bills. Which is what _everything_ boils down to in the end. The motherhood and fulfillment stuff is all just hoohah."

"He—brought them back." Saya voice is thick and resistant, as if pulling the words out of mud.

In a staticky, awkward movement, she reaches for her children. Haji watches her fingers stroke the dark curls, the closed eyelids, as if feeling the texture of some fine glass object.

Tears fill her eyes; her face twitches, wet drops splattering her cheeks. "Kai—"

"They're all yours, Saya. He's let you keep them. You don't have to worry." Kai speaks soothingly, as if he suspects, just as Haji does, that Saya might drop in sudden a faint, or fly up and hit the roof.

She touches the babies again, tremulous. Then her eyes lift to meet Haji's. He reads the a silent appeal there. Crossing the room in a blink, he helps her into a chair before she slumps down.

"Did—" She coughs, moistening her throat. "Kai, did… Solomon look all right?"

Kai frowns. "Look all right? Not really. He was really pale. Almost… half-gutted. Just like you, when you first showed up here."

Saya puts her hands over her eyes.

Clearing his throat, Kai glances at Haji. "I'm starting to wish I'd made notes or something. About what Solomon said to tell her. I think I'm making a bleeding hash of it."

Haji shakes his head. But his eyes are on Saya.

Inexplicably, he feels just as he did the night they defeated James Ironside. Watching Solomon's back recede down the street, knowing, with a crawling disbelief, that this man was _dying_ —and that he'd chosen to do so by serving the woman both he and Haji loved.

What had he said to Saya back then? That strange quixotic banter that only _Solomon_ was capable of—this man-child who seemed to wear his heart on his sleeve, yet reveal nothing whatsoever of his true self.

_Saya, I will be your Chevalier of my own free will._

"He kept his word," Haji murmurs.

"What?" Saya blinks.

"He fulfilled his duty as your Chevalier. He put your interests before his own. He saw to it that no matter what his own feelings were, you wouldn't be deprived of what you needed."

"What I …needed?" Saya's habit of repetition often makes her seem slow on the uptake. But Haji knows she only does it to marshal her thoughts.

Just as he finds himself marshaling hundreds of his own.

All this time, he'd seen Solomon's obsession for Saya as perverse, disastrous. He still wants to think it is. To blame the other man for bedding and ruining her, splash around in his hatred forever.

But this…

This is forcing him to reconsider everything.

He's learnt, all these years, to revere love so much. His life alongside Saya has taught him nothing less. Which is why he cannot relegate Solomon's gesture—or the deep sacrifice it implies.

"He… really did love you, didn't he?" he murmurs.

Saya's eyes are bloodshot. "He did. He really did. It's something I could never understand about him. He went through so much to be with me. He abandoned his own Queen for my sake. But I had no idea _why_. Was it just his blood that made him want me? Or was it—"

"I don't think his love for you had to do with blood at all, Saya."

"What then?"

"It was his spirit. And we both know that's harder to resist, even still."

* * *

_But when you crush the spirit, you crush the man completely…_

Solomon runs his thumb over his glass.

The cocktail lounge is underlit, elegant. Red sconces and dark walls overlaid by a web of cigar-smoke. His seat is at the farthest darkest corner, but he can hear everything. The staff moving behind the kitchen doors. The drone of traffic dozens of floors below. The tinkling glasses and soft laughter.

He focuses on his own drink. The wine shimmers in the dim lights above, so the surface looks like a moist cluster of sparks in a silver band.

He can see one of the female patrons at the opposite side. Slinky dress, shimmering long legs, tumbled black hair. The air-conditioning circulates her scent to him. She's three days out of her monthly courses, wearing rosy perfume atop vanilla-scented shower-gel, and she's eaten something full of ginseng and chicken before topping it with passionfruit rum.

She runs a finger around the rim of her glass, giving him the eye.

Solomon ignores it.

He's been at this lounge before. So many times, during travels to Tokyo. The _New York Grill and Bar_ —on the top floor of the Park Hyatt Hotel. The view from every window is breathtaking at night. Glittering city lights, glittering stars.

Except everytime he was here, he never admired it once.

Too much else on his mind back then. All his trips here were on business, after all. He remembers each one; the quick handshakes and introductions, the veiled conversations and cigarette smoke. All the older-looking men caught off-guard by his youthful face and easy manner. Dismissing him as an upstart parvenu—nothing to be taken seriously.

Not realizing this had been Solomon's area of expertise long before they'd ever crawled from their mamas' wombs.

Sometimes he misses those days. All that power and possibility at his fingertips. No conscience, no regrets. No feelings for anyone around him.

Barely any of his own.

Without thinking, Solomon touches the cool silver of his wedding ring.

Days have passed, but he still hasn't taken it off. He tells himself he ought to; the ring marks an era of his life that will never be again. But the idea of parting with it seems even more heinous than separation from his daughters was.

God…

His little girls.

He'd never imagined such wrenching loss as he felt in handing them over. How it crashed on him later, again and again, without once abating. After leaving them at Kai's house, he'd gone to his hotel room and spent almost six hours retching into the toilet, crying and crying until his eyes felt like they'd fall from their sockets.

If they were here, at least he wouldn't be alone. He'd be in his room, cradling them in his arms. Head full of anxieties and plans—wanting to ensure them a home, security.

A future.

_What future can I provide them when I haven't any myself?_

It was in _Saya_ that his future was embodied. One brighter, more infinite, than he'd ever dreamed for, even in the murkiest moments of his existence. He'd found whole new pathways of devotion in loving her. Felt as if he were finally _alive_ ; sharing his life with someone who accepted what he could _give_.

His years before were so steeped in the opposite.

Taking lives, money, families and dreams. His existence with Diva was a blackhole that sucked in everything—granting nothing in return. Under Amshel, he'd despoiled, deceived, with every word and breath. As a soldier, he'd been depravity in a way no human language could comprehend.

Maybe the innocence in his daughters could have scorched that out of him. Remade him into someone pure again.

Which is sweet to imagine. Except if he'd kept his daughters, he'd have tainted them from the filth oozing from his every pore.

_It's Saya they belong with. She'll do what's best for them._

_She_ is _what's best for them._

He shuts his eyes. His skin seems to have shrunken ten sizes, too tight on his frame. Eyes dry as a scorching desert.

_This is the point where even tears are beyond you._

_This is the point where you begin to pray your heart will stop beating._

Perhaps it already has. Perhaps he's just a ghost, revisiting the nightmare of his own life.

There's a clock directly across him. Studying at it, he realizes the time of the night where he used to dine with Saya is upon him. They always sat for their meals together—regardless of arguments or schedules. It was a rule they'd both been raised to abide to.

As a child, he'd dreaded his family's dinners. He still remembers himself, small and chubby-cheeked, seated between his parents on a sweeping oak table that was part of mamma's dowry, and of generations of grandmothers before her. Perched on a cushion so his nose reached his plate, he'd feel the coldness between his parents like a physical pressure—the way they never looked at each other, never touched or spoke.

No wonder he had no appetite when they were together.

With Saya—at least in the early days—it was so different. There was something so miraculously intimate about dining with her. An armistice feast of enemies. He remembers the way her little fingers would curl around her fork, how her pretty throat worked as she swallowed. Cheeks plumped, eyes and mouth all shiny.

Remembers that ever-anticipated signal that came after, when she'd set her plate aside and meet his look from under shy eyelashes.

_It's never a wise idea to sleep on a full stomach, angel._

_Mm, so you keep telling me. Good thing we both believe in preventive medicine._

God… with his eyes closed, he can't help but re-experience her. Her smooth fragrant skin, the spread of her hips under his palms, her sobbing gasps and fluttering hands. Wrapped in her dizzying warmth, every bland hotel room of every nameless country had dissolved to a hotbox of passion and satiety. She let him ravish her, possess her as if she belonged to him. Yet at the same time, she made him feel as if he was all _hers_. How her eyes would flare red as she offered herself to his touch. The way she'd call his name, the dirtysweet words she'd gasp in his ear. How she'd throw her head back, bare her throat as she'd spend.

His angel. His wicked little wildcat. His tormentress and his heart's delight.

He wonders what she's doing now. Is she with their daughters, putting them to sleep? Or is she alone with Haji, preparing to—

 _Don't_.

He hates that Saya would let Haji touch her. Hates the thought of her undressing, opening her thighs or her mouth for him. He wonders if she'd let Haji meet her eyes while they made love. She'd been a willing elastic object for Solomon's every feverish fantasy—but that was one intimacy she'd d never allowed him.

_Because she used to pretend she was with Haji, that's why._

Solomon fights off a sour taste in his mouth.

He can't remember the last time he was so cut adrift. His life has shattered to chaos in just a few days. Without Saya, what purpose does he have in this wretched existence? Before meeting her, he'd seen people as disposable blood-packs. Motivated by the robotic desire to feed and fuck and use everyone around him.

Saya's love had consecrated him. Made him whole again.

But now he's beginning to wonder if the entire thing—happiness and the communion of souls—isn't just an elaborate sham. Idiotic nonsense every boy should discard long before he starts shaving. Who in this world can afford to be so high-minded?

_What's to stop me from going to Saya's house right now and killing her with my bare hands?_

Once incited, the fantasy blooms into sweet temptation. Isn't she the reason his orderly existence fell apart in the first place? She poisoned him to the marrow, made him unfit for his former duties to his former queen. She deserves to be ruined and humiliated, exactly as she'd done to him

In the next breath, his eyes fall on his wedding ring. And all the violence drains, waterlike, from his frame, leaving behind puddles of sick regret.

_How could I ever hurt her?_

_She was the only happiness I knew in this life._

Unbidden, he remembers a verse Diva sometimes cooed while disemboweling her dolls. _I hate you—and I love you—I want to throw you off a cliff—and rush to the bottom to catch you._

The memory, coupled with the slow orchestral music, hits a hidden nerve in him, like a florid acupuncture point. He's suddenly flooded with _Diva_ —her scandalous mane of dark hair, her liquid blue eyes and mad little laugh. Her familiarity and mystery and tragedy.

He finally realizes how she felt, crystallizing at Saya's hand. The _could-have-been's_ and _might-have-been_ 's, all flitting like agitated starlings in her head.

_All she wanted was a family._

Isn't that what Nathan later told him?

Solomon misses her now. Diva seems like the only person who could understand him anymore.

Raising his glass in a solo toast, he drinks to her memory.

_I might just be seeing you soon._

When the shadow falls across his table, he assumes it to be the waiter. Without looking up, he lifts his glass. "Same again, please."

No answer. The shadow doesn't move.

When Solomon glances up, his visitor smirks.

"Nathan. What are you doing here?"

"I could ask _you_ the same thing." The elder Chevalier is the only one in the lounge not dressed in a dark suit or a neat buttondown and khaki trousers. His lurid-looking cocktail—some fruity multicolored brew with a tiny pink umbrella—clashes with his bright purple shirt and rippling sunburst hair.

"How did you find me?" Solomon asks.

Nathan taps his nose. "Followed the stench of freshly-divorced myopia, of course. Or—no wait. Not divorced yet, are we? Planning to call your overpriced lawyers and start handling details anytime soon?"

Solomon doesn't reply.

"I tried calling you several times, you know. Sent you a few texts, just to make sure you hadn't decapitated your fool head. You never answered."

"I threw my phone out my hotel window a week ago."

Nathan grins, fangs flashing like an evil puppet's. "Oh, I see. You're doing that two-week orgy-slash-bender routine like when Karl conked it, hm? What're you having this time? Smirnoff and Siamese twins? Wild turkey and all-boy revues? "

No answer.

Ignoring his reticence, Nathan slips into the chair opposite Solomon's. "You know what? You need some uplifting company. It's bad luck to drink alone. And you're stuffed with so much that it's bleeding out your eyeballs."

Solomon keeps his eyes on his half-empty glass. Part of him wants to beg off this conversation. He's not drunk enough to suffer it yet. But it seems the gods won't spare him any mercy tonight.

Fitting really.

In many ways, he's already plummeted into his own private Hell.

Nathan drapes one arm over the back of the chair, examining Solomon more closely. "Wow. No wonder you're sitting all the way at the back. You look like complete and utter _shit_."

"Takes one to know one."

A snigger. "That's Haji you're thinking of, loverboy. Although by _god_ —if _he_ looked craptastic after Saya dumped him, you could write a dissertation on the subject. Guess it really is true, what they say about sex improving your complexion."

"Nathan, what do you want?"

A smile, half derisive, half sincere. "I'm here to console you, of course. At the moment, I seem to be the only Solomon-whisperer among our species."

Solomon sips his drink without answering.

"I heard about what you did, you know. Giving Saya the babies back. Very noble of you. I suppose no one ever told you that filthy-rich single fathers are on quite the Ladies' Hot-List these days."

"I am far from interested."

"Well, of course not. At least not immediately, right? Knowing you, there'll probably be a big lovelorn 'oh-woe-is-me-I'll-be-alone-for-all-eternity' phase. But once you're done licking your wounds, you'll jump right back into the pool. Find a nice piece of cellulite-free ass to sip gourmet wine with. Take her home and pound her into the mattress. Or maybe you'd like a boy? Someone who'll bite you back and roll over for you, without all that lovey-dovey emotional bullshit women need so much."

"Why, Nathan? Are you offering?"

Nathan actually blinks for a split-second before his face recomposes into a sly grin. " _That,_ poodle, depends entirely on how interested _you_ are. Don't think I haven't forgotten how big a tease you can be. There's a difference between splashing around by the shore and plunging into the deep end, you know."

"I have plunged at the end of something. I am just unsure what."

_Perhaps everything._

Nathan sniffs. "Well, if you're going to be so _mopey_ about it, I may just revoke my offer. And while we're on the subject: when was the last time you _showered?_ You've crossed the line past smelling manful to just plain _wrong_. At least post-dumped _Haji_ made an effort not to look like he was falling to shit."

"Mentioning Haji is not the way to get me in the mood."

"Why not? Like him or hate him, you have to admit the boy's a tasty treat. And you should see him with his hair down in a fight, all sweaty and whetted up. You'd barely recognize him. He lashes out like ten _cobras_."

Solomon presses his temples. "Nathan—can't you please leave me alone?"

" _Hell_ no. Misery loves company. And it _is_ extreme evil to depart from the company of the living before you die."

"Dying has little to do with this." _How can it, when it feels as though I'm already dead?_

Nathan titters, as if he can sense Solomon's thoughts. His voice drops, marginally more serious. "I meant what I said, y'know. Giving those children back to Saya was surprisingly generous."

"They needed their mother."

"You think so?"

"I've seen countless men die before my eyes, Nathan. There's a reason most of them say 'Help me, Mama' and not 'Papa'."

"Point. But that isn't what interests me so much as the way you're carrying yourself."

"What?"

Tossing his head back, Nathan downs his drink in one gulp. When he sets his glass down, his tone is less casual, more insinuating. "You look less like a grieving father than a man at the end of his tether, Solomon. I find that intriguing."

"I do not know what you mean."

"Oh, don't you? Solomon Goldsmith. Robbed of both his wife and children, all in one fell swoop. Any other man would be in blubbering pieces. But not you." Sighing, Nathan runs a fingernail along his drink. "Still, I'm sure you must deeply miss your precious Saya. Despite her grave injustice to you. How you must wish—"

"You have no idea what I wish, Nathan. And I would honestly prefer if you not speak of it."

"I'm not speaking of anything. I'm just wondering about you. Tell me, where do you plan to go from here? An errant Chevalier without a Queen? If this were ancient Chiropteran society, you would've been expected to kill yourself. A matter of honor, you know. Which, I'm not mentioning to put the idea in your head—but more because I suspect it's already _there_."

Solomon makes no answer. Simply concentrates on the shimmering surface of his drink.

"You've always been one to take things to extremes, Solomon. Just like Karl. Just like poor James in the end. And, when you get down to it, a whole lot like Diva too. They always say a useless life is an early death."

"I've lived far beyond the sphere classified as 'early death', Nathan."

"Pff. At a hundred and eighteen? Please—you're a _fetus_ compared to me." Lifting his glass to the light, Nathan studies the fantastical play of colors within. "I'm curious, Solomon. Where exactly did you and Saya go wrong? You seemed to be getting on quite _famously_ , as far as anyone could tell."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Oh, but _I_ do. Tell me, Solomon. When you first whisked Saya away during the war, did you wonder why you really wanted to be with her? Why you were in love with her at all?"

Solomon frowns, not moving his eyes from his drink. In the dimness, the colors within are hard to fix on. But it is still easier than meeting Nathan's gaze.

"I never asked myself why I loved her. I only knew that I did. As if I'd been missing something my whole life—something only being with her could fix."

"You loved the reflection of yourself you saw in her eyes?"

"No." He pauses. He feels exactly as he had the night he was chained in Nathan's basement. Impelled, like a man at the mouth of death, to speak the irrefutable truth. "I loved the purity she represented. The strength. She was willing to give up everything for her mission. She poured her entire soul into it. The idea seemed impossible to grasp, at least for someone like me. I'd never given myself, my energies or emotions, to anything. Meeting her made me realize… how fragmentary my life was. I wanted to protect her, keep her safe. I knew her mission would destroy her, and I couldn't stand the idea of that happening."

"You didn't think Haji would be any good for her?"

"Of course not. That useless insect. So drab and spineless. What good would dirt like that be for such a precious bloom as Saya?"

Nathan lifts a shoulder. "Well, dirt _does_ seem awfully dull on the outside. But remember: without it, nothing in the rose-garden can grow. Doesn't matter how sturdy the fence around it is. That drab spineless dirt is what keeps those flowers alive. Gives them roots."

"You're saying I wasn't as good for Saya as Haji can be. Is that it?"

"I'm not saying you weren't _good_ for her, Solomon. I'm saying you weren't _right_ for her. Especially not with that tragic possessive streak of yours. _"_

"I never—"

"Locking her indoors, making all her decisions for her, picking out her clothes, her eating habits, her friends and hobbies? Sounds like one cooped-up canary to me." Nathan lifts his voice to a croon, " _O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on_. _"_

Solomon's nails whiten on his glass. All those measures he'd been forced to take with Saya… he doesn't like to hear them so baldly stated. And yet… he knows it is true. He'd been jealous every moment he spent with her. Jealous of the thoughts she'd kept hidden from him, the affections she'd seemed to withhold from him—ones he was sure only Haji would ever receive.

Unbidden, he remembers how he'd once seen them together, back while she was living at Kai's house. Passing the backyard after one of his visits to Diva's twins, he'd spotted her and Haji kissing near the window. Remembers the soft look on her face as she'd slipped into her Chevalier's arms. The sweet absorption with which she'd given herself to his lips. God, how _intimate_ they'd seemed! Like one entity portioned into different beings.

Watching them, Solomon had nearly gone up in smoke inside, while another part had wanted to bash Haji's skull open.

She'd never been that undefended, that utterly serene, when she was with him. Those fleeting kisses she'd given Haji held more affection than all the elaborate sexual vagaries she'd ever lavished on him.

_But was that reason enough to wall her in with all my insecurities?_

No. Of course not.

What if he'd been patient, rather than forceful? What if he'd found a way to make her open up to him? He'd already come so far with her. Actually convinced her to _marry_ him. Surely with time, he would have found a way into her heart too. If he'd treated her better, perhaps she would have found it easier to confide in him. It shouldn't have mattered how long the transition took. Didn't he have all of eternity to earn her trust?

_But I didn't._

_She gave me all I'd ever wanted… but I never woke up in time to realize it._

What seems so simple and right now, hadn't occurred to him before.

Solomon shuts his eyes. "All right. So my treatment of her was unfair."

"You're actually _admitting_ this?"

"What sense would there be in my denying it? I was terrified every second of losing her. But it never occurred to me… that I would _drive_ her away."

Nathan inclines his head. "I've always said that falling in love drives you off-course. When someone sweeps you off your feet, they're in the perfect position to dump you on your ass."

"There's no way I can go back and change that now."

"You honestly think things would be better if you could change the past, Solomon?"

"If I could start over with her… then yes. Of course I would do better."

Nathan laughs, a merry mocking trill. "Well, see, that's the catch. I doubt there _is_ such thing as 'better' in this life. There's only 'different'. We do what we do, based only on the circumstances we find ourselves in. Each action fits into the next, simply because that's how it's meant to be."

"You're saying my marriage with Saya was destined to fail all along?"

"Perhaps. But then, you don't believe in _destiny_ , do you? You've always gone for that: 'I am master of my fate, captain of my soul' crap Amshel liked to spout. In which case the blame of losing Saya lies entirely on _you_. But hey! Look on the bright side. You got to stick the key in her _ignition_ long before Haji did. If she returns to him with a bagful of new tricks up her sleeve... we-ell, Haji won't _thank_ you. But I doubt he'll kick you for it."

Solomon exhales. "Nathan, why is it that whenever you say you want to _console_ me, all you do is give me a hard time?"

"Can't have one without the other, can you?"

Solomon opens his mouth to answer. Then it hits him, in full force, why he's talking about this at all:

_Saya is gone._

The sensation is staggering, like being struck with a meteorite. For a moment he can't breathe around the force of it. How can he sit here, speak coherently, stand or walk or _exist_ at all, without her? How can life go on, the world keep on moving, when his own has fallen apart? Everything should be crumbling to ruin—this cosmos should be shriveling in emulation of his loss.

 _I've nothing left._ The realization creeps unbidden into his consciousness. _I've_ nothing _left._

Eyes shut, he looks away. "Nathan… I'm tired of this."

"Tired of what? Sitting here? 'Cause if you're in the mood for something more vigorous, we know where we can go."

"No. I'm tired of pretending to be a man. Of living a life with no purpose. I should tear apart everything in this goddamned city and go out like the mindless beast I really am."

Unfazed, Nathan slaps his cheek; lightly, fondly. "Oh shut up, Solomon. We've _all_ had those moments. Times where minutes pass like murder, and we want to use our powers for _bad._ Just _lose_ ourselves. Those big dramatic gestures do help blow some steam, after all. Like a good fight or a good fuck."

"It's not about blowing steam. I want to be rid of this life. I'd like to be free."

"Free? You mean _dead_."

"If that's the price I have to pay for waking up… so be it."

Nathan snorts. "That's a one-way trip into a whole new brand of horseshit, sweetboy."

"Where else am I going to go from here?"

"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to."

"I don't care about where—" Breaking off, Solomon frowns. He isn't sure why the whole conversation sounds so familiar. Then he realizes Nathan is quoting the Cheshire Cat from _Alice in Wonderland_.

The elder Chevalier's grin is a perfect mimicry of the namesake. Leaning forward, he adds, "Still, you're bound to get _somewhere_ , right? If you only walk long enough. But at the moment, you have more _pressing_ concerns to deal with."

"Such as?"

"Well, before tying the knot, you and Saya never signed a _pre-nuptial agreement_ , did you?"

"No. But what does that have to do with—"

Nathan smile widens. "Allow me to recommend the names of some _excellent_ divorce attorneys. Otherwise you and Saya are going to be stuck in family court until Hell freezes over."


	31. Rescue

She leans over her sleeping twins, pressing a kiss to each forehead.

Both washed and fed, tucked under their Hello Kitty sheets and mounds of stuffed animals. Hopefully settled for the night.

In the early days, they cried nonstop at this hour. But a year later, no amount of noise rouses them. She could strike gongs over their heads with no response. Kai often drawls that they get this quality from  _her_.

But it's  _Solomon_  whom Saya most associates them to.

She sees him in their catlike eyes and serene smiles. They have the same translucent skins and slender blunt-tipped fingers, the same mercurial manner. Looking at them is a constant grief, but also a reminder to do better. Recompense for the agony before their birth.

At first, she'd feared their resemblance to Solomon might repulse Haji. But Haji doesn't care for the babies' origins so much as for their own selves. He sees them, not as Solomon's legacy, but as smaller extensions of Saya. Unexpected but far from unwelcome in his life.

The twins certainly return his  _joi de vivre._  Saya has noticed how they stop crying as soon as he picks them up, how they coo and starfish their hands at the mere sound of his voice.

Their attachment for him is so obvious, it's painful knowing he isn't their blood-parent.

But she's learnt, both from him and her family, and from Solomon, that love isn't birthed by blood alone.

Kai leans in beside her, fingers curled around the edge of the crib. The moon shines from the stained-glass window behind him. The old flat she has moved into, a cedar tumble of blocks not too far from the seaside, is constructed to let in full sunlight. The couple that lived here before was European; the wood-paneled décor and Toile de Jouy patterns seem to reflect that at every glance.

Sometimes, like in all the hotels she and Solomon drifted through, Saya can smell the past presence of its owners, their sleep and food and worries, like a ghostly miasma. It used to disquiet her, but now it makes her look forward to when the house will finally smell of nothing but  _home_.

As she watches the twins, Kai smirks. "You can stop the inspection now, Saya. They're both out like lights."

"I know. I just…I like looking at them, y'know."

"Yeah, you should see yourself. All mushy and mommy-faced. New place, new wallpaper, new carpets…"

She wrinkles her nose. " _Mommy-_ faced?"

"New curtains, new  _husband_ …"

"I didn't hear  _you_  disapproving about that last part."

"Why should I? After six months of dancing around the topic, Haji finally made an honest woman out of you. One more reason for me not to get into the whole Outraged Brother act."

"I was  _still_  an honest woman while the girls were being born."

"Yeah, you must've been, if all those curses you hollered during the labor were anything to go by."

"You know, Kai, if I weren't as  _mushy and mommy-faced_  as you say I am…"

Chuckling, Kai raises his hands. "All right, all right. Daggers down. I'm just no good when it comes to these sappy occasions. You know that."

"Well generally, we start with 'congratulations on your wedding, and good luck with your married life'."

Kai smirks, extending a hand. "I don't need to say that."

"Why not?"

His smile tones down, more brotherly and personal. "I dunno. Somehow… I almost think you and Haji were sort-of always married. Without really needing to go into any ceremonies and shit."

Saya falters, fingers tightening on Kai's. Can't think of anything to say.

Kai sobers. "You… talked to Solomon on the phone, didn't you? Before the wedding?"

"Yeah. I-I did."

"And? What'd he say?"

She glances away.

She called Solomon in the morning, to inform him of the wedding. As a courtesy, so he wouldn't have to hear it from someone else _._ Of course, he would not be attending. He was in Nepal with Nathan right now. Although it certainly wasn't, as Nathan had drawled, to  _shave off his hair and live with monks._

The wedding ceremony, so different from hers and Solomon's, boasted no flood of guests, no dancing or cornucopia of pastries and champagne. Just Kai, Mao, Lewis, David and Julia in attendance, in a familial façade simple enough to be innocuous. Yet, she'd still felt Solomon's presence beside her, as if he were gazing sadly over her shoulder the whole time, dressed in his crisp black suits like some elegant harbinger.

Her hands trembled when she'd signed her name on the marriage license. Her voice wavered when she took her vows.

But the emotion riddling her wasn't guilt.

She'd felt almost like a prisoner who'd escaped from her dungeon. Who'd crawled, delirious and disbelieving, on her hands and knees to the sunlight beyond her cell.

Until the light kiss Haji gave her encapsulated every fear, small and vital as a full-stop at the end of a sentence.

 _Please,_  Solomon said on the phone.  _Please don't let him take you to... any of the places we visited when we were together. That's all I can ask of you._

 _All right._ She'd wanted to add,  _I'm sorry_ , but what was the use? They were both sorry, in their own ways, and it couldn't change anything.

 _It did not have to come to this, you know,_ Solomon added _. I'll always believe we could have worked something out between us. I still miss you and think of you every day. I won't ever stop._

Saya hadn't known how to answer. The weight of his words felt ominous; more a  _haiku_ than a petition. Tears had started in her eyes. With a soft  _goodbye_ , she'd gently hung up.

Kai notices her expression now. "Shit. I-I didn't mean to make you cry."

Saya blinks at the moisture in her eyes. "Wh-what? I didn't realize—" She dabs a hand at her wet face. Her other hand is still curled in Kai's; he gives it a squeeze.

"Look. Even if we try, we can't shut some people out of our lives. Maybe it'd be better if we did, but life doesn't work that way."

"I-I don't want to shut Solomon out of my life. It's true; things… weren't always smooth between us. But that won't change the fact that he sacrificed so much for me. Or that he's still the twins' father."

"Just what happened between you two? I mean, I don't wanna pry, but you never talked about it to anyone."

She looks away. "Kai…"

"You can tell me, Saya. Because I could never really figure out what went wrong back there. You looked like you were doing fine with him, and suddenly—"

Saya winces. Even now, almost a year later, it is still so difficult to talk about that time. Almost as difficult as remembering the war.

"I-I can't explain it, Kai. For a while, we  _were_  very happy together. But then we just… weren't. I don't think it was anybody's fault. We just… didn't know anything about each other. Didn't even really know who  _we_  were or what  _we_  really wanted. But Solomon did try his best to love me. And he did let me keep the twins."

"Yeah. Whenever you look back on anything, always take the bad with the good. Isn't that what Dad used to say?"

"Mm. I guess when I married him, I… didn't really know what I wanted. The first chance of escape I saw, I just grabbed it. If I were smarter, I'd have waited a little, tried to decide what was really important to me. Given myself some time to think."

"Well, you've got time aplenty now."

"I know. Maybe now, I can use it to do something valuable."

As if on cue, they hear the front door clicking open, signaling Haji's return.

She and Kai exchange looks.

"Okay," Kai grimaces. "There's some real crapped-up divine message there that I do  _not_  wanna think about."

Saya sticks her tongue out at him. "Serves you right for calling me  _Mommy-face_."

* * *

Haji has been living with her for six months before the wedding. Helping her with the babies, getting her settled into this new life. Acting more as her Chevalier than a lover, even though he's clearly assumed the role of a father for her twins.

They've spent almost every minute of every day together, but no physical contact between them has been prurient in nature.

In the mornings, they talk while sprawled side-by-side in her bed, with the babies lying like squirming logs on his chest. Watching TV, she sits curled beside him with her head on his shoulder, rubbing his calf with her foot. In parks and supermarkets, they link hands, braving occasional glares from passersby for their 'age difference' and the pram rolling before them. At nights, she drops to sleep in the babies' room, only to awaken tucked up in her own bed, with Haji leaning quietly by the wall outside her room, just like in the war.

The desire is very much present, as much in him as her, but as if in wordless stand-off, neither of them has acted upon it.

At first, Saya knew they were waiting for her to recover from the childbirth, get comfortable in her own skin. Then, she told herself they were both waiting, in a testament of their upbringing, for the wedding to make things official.

But she knows that she'd have invited Haji to her bed long ago, if not for the fear boiling like an ulcer inside her.

She'd betrayed him in the worst possible way, yet he'd taken her back.

But...that might not mean he'd completely forgiven her.

She isn't sure what caused this feeling. Certainly nothing Haji said to her. Just something in his manner, ever since their reunion. An earnest kindness that could be tantamount to… distance.

He has been nothing  _but_  kind since her return—and it kills her more each day.

She still remembers, with a sick flush, what he'd said after she'd returned from the hospital. Nothing cruel or bitter—just a sweet thing. Perfectly harmless. Before helping her into bed, he'd clasped her hand in his. Whispered, with his eyes averted,  _I'm so sorry about what Solomon did to you in Prague, Saya. I should have been there to protect you._

 _Haji, it's all right_. _I told you. It wasn't anyone's fault. It was all just a horrible accident._

 _Even so. If I had kept you safer…_ He closed his eyes, as if she might see something unintended there.  _Saya, I'm just so sorry. I wish Solomon had never taken you away. I wish he had never put his hands on you, never made you his wife._

The subtext had seared her. Perhaps, after what she'd done, Haji couldn't see her the same way. Maybe he wanted to take back time, bring the  _old_  her back.

The one Solomon hadn't despoiled.

Wiping away the film of steam, Saya examines her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Trying to see the girl she was. Over a century old, a hardened warrior so intimate with death, but so naïve about life. Still innocent about sex and love and the perversions it could take on.

Solomon had schooled her in all that; fashioned her into something more dissolute than the Saya who'd accepted his hand at the altar. She'd barely comprehended her own dimensions until he'd taken her to bed. Never known how much she could require or be capable of.

But now…

Saya examines herself intently. Hair brushed to a high shine, cut short and feathery like in her high-school days. Almost a disassociation from  _Madame Goldsmith's_ long wavy tresses _._ But she doesn't look like the babyish sixteen-year-old from then.

It's not just that her face is leaner. Her eyes seem so heavy-lidded now, something in them hinting, secret, shaded.

She's lost herself.

It can't be undone any more than her two years as Solomon's wife. But when she looks at Haji, she wonders if he can see it too. If he's reminded of when, in how many ways, she gave herself to another man.

Her own desperation only complicates matters. Eager as she is to make things up to Haji, demonstrate her contrition, she's only driving him further away. He's become cautious in every way he addresses her. Any little apology from her seems to be a petition. Anything he says to gently dispel it seems to be a rejection.

They can't exchange more than three sentences anymore, without bruising each other.

She's tried to overcome this barrier, recover the ease and honesty between them. The night before their wedding, they almost might have. She remembers how the babies were asleep, how she and Haji had been sitting on her bed, going over the events of the coming day. Before bidding her goodnight, Haji had bent to kiss her forehead. She'd lifted her head at the same moment, and the kiss landed on her lips. She expected him to pull away, but instead he leaned in to circle her with his arms, renew the contact.

It was the first spontaneously passionate one between them.

Grateful, simmering, she'd been too overwhelmed to do anything but respond. Urging him closer with over-warm hands, she lured him on top of her. Kisses spiraling deeper and deeper, shivering into gasps and breathless sighs. She'd just wanted to melt into him, without preliminaries or discussion. Wanted to knit them together in a slow silent bond of flesh.

But when Haji released her lips, mouthing a hot path down her throat, she'd said something. Wasn't sure if it was accidental or intentional, but the words froze him in place.

_I'm sorry._

Haji stopped. Raising himself on his elbows, he looked at her face.

_Saya...you aren't obligated to do this as a way of apologizing to me._

_What—?_

She wasn't sure what her expression telegraphed. But whatever Haji saw seemed to convince him this was a bad idea.

Softly kissing her forehead, as he'd originally intended, he quitted the room.

_Goodnight, Saya._

She waited until the door gently clicked shut before she let the tears fall.

Saya winces, opening the faucet to splash away identical tears now.

She's been bathing a great deal lately—but not because of the Okinawan humidity. She always feels greasy, a sensation no amount of soap and water can expunge.

In the early days, the Red Shield missions, the demanding babies, the change in lifestyle, had made it easier to bear. There was a lot of work to be done—at home, outside it. The Chiropteran incidents worldwide were petering toward full termination, and Red Shield was working to make it a reality. Before marrying Solomon, Saya had treated it something removed from her new life. Dirty work. Not her problem anymore.

But after she recovered from the birth, she threw herself into the operation with wholehearted fervor. The only time she felt like herself anymore was when she was digging her sword into Chiropteran hides.

Pockets of new nests had been discovered in New York, where Haji had been helping Red Shield. When her Chevalier was recalled to finish his job, leaving her to handle matters on a closer-to-home front, the obligation of duty-bound warriors over reconciling lovers was inevitable.

No matter how much she tried, there was no escaping from the demands of this life.

 _Please, Saya,_ Haji had said, squeezing her hands in his own. _I swear to you, this is the last ever time._

Nodding, Saya wanted to tell him she was ready to wait—hadn't he waited centuries for her without complaint? But all she could manage in a low, too-strained voice, was:  _I guess—we both need a little alone time right now, don't we?_

Haji hesitated.  _Perhaps it might be best. We… both need to think things through a little, that's all._   _Gain a fresh perspective._

He was right. They were both exhausted by this new turn of events. They'd separated to go in different directions—only to converge headlong like meteors. They needed time to work through this sudden displacement.

But even as she'd conceded to the break, Saya wondered if Haji was happy to escape her anxious over-yearning presence.

If so, she'd have no right to begrudge him.

The month they split up was the bleakest of her life. She stayed in Omoro with Kai, where the twins were put in a portacrib in her old room. Rose in the morning to help Mao with the dishes, the cleaning, and anything that could keep her busy. Headed out most evenings with Kai, on Red Shield briefings, Chiropteran hunts.

Almost every night, they found Chiropterans in hiding. Almost every night, she killed.

On the frontline, more than anywhere, Haji's memory revisited her. Every battle where they'd synched so flawlessly, every close shave where his flying daggers or swinging cello-case had spared her from harm, all came back to her in a detailed rush. Seated alone by the window each night, long after the mission was over, she'd watch the ever-waning moon and wonder what he was doing.

Her twins were another challenge altogether. They needed nonstop nourishment, pindot care. She barely slept three hours before their crying woke her anew. Were she still married to Solomon, there would've been a nursemaid to handle this. But here, there was no escape.

Kai helped as much as possible. Admittedly, he was better-experienced with newborns than she. Watching him handle everything with such no-nonsense ease, Saya felt a surging admiration for him. To think he had raised Diva's daughters alone. No one to help him with the dirty diapers, the 2 AM feedings, the constant exhaustion and responsibility.

Motherhood felt so foreign to her. She hadn't expected it to be so...  _weighty_. The sleepless nights and continuous paranoia made her feel like she was back in the war. She always felt drained, detached of emotion. A satellite orbiting her own life.

Dr. Julia told her this was perfectly normal. Just postpartum blues. And according to Kai, the minute-to-minute anxiety was a good sign.

 _"Welcome to your new life, Saya_. _It's called parenthood. But relax. You'll get used to it."_

 _Will I really?_ Saya wondered, each time she was jerked out of screaming nightmares by the more immediate screams of her twins. Unable to decide which was worse.

At first she'd felt like a bad mother. Everyone told her she wasn't. But she  _felt_  like one. Even when she held her babies close, bathing or nursing them, she couldn't see these tiny creatures as from the same source-material as herself. Their crying seemed to hold a strident note, as if constantly accusing her of a past evil.

And whenever they'd fall asleep, little curls falling over their faces, they'd remind her so much of  _Solomon_  it choked her.

Looking at them, Saya would find herself replaying everything about her marriage. Trying to understand what went wrong, wondering if she should have tried harder, been a better wife.

Solomon's treatment of her hadn't always been gentle—the least sign of conflict had unleashed his cruelty. But she couldn't deny that, however warped his methods, he'd loved her. She'd been, without question, the center of his world. He'd clutched at her like some precious fruit salvaged in a terrible famine.

Not realizing that the tighter he'd grip, the deeper he'd crush.

Haji's absence only deepened her uncertainty. Sometimes, awash in loneliness, she'd be convinced he wasn't coming back. Mornings when she'd cry in the shower, wondering if she'd made a mistake, should've just stayed with Solomon. She was flawed and imperfect in every way—maybe she deserved a difficult marriage and an equally unhappy spouse.

Worse, her memory discolored everything. Instead of remembering all hers and Solomon's fights, she'd recall only their happier times; their warm confidential chats in bed, the jokes and laughter.

The feeling would worsen if she ever spoke to Solomon on the phone. Sometimes, he'd sound genuinely amiable and charming. Full of eager little details to share with her, like a child who was storing up all the good things to tell his best friend after a long journey. But other times— _the bad times_ —she'd practically taste his despair. His sentences would be dull, voice flat. And she'd know he felt the emptiness even worse than she.

At least she had family and friends to support her.

He had nothing.

Sometimes, she'd almost wish she  _had_  let him keep the twins. They could've eased his pain. He would've been a good father; didn't matter if he hired a nanny—in Saya's opinion, even a stranger would've been a better caregiver than herself.

But she'd made her decision, and she wouldn't backtrack now. It was impossible to see her life juxtaposed with Solomon's again. Didn't matter if he loved her or she cared about him—they just weren't right for one another. No amount of crying or compromise could change that.

And as the days went by, she started to feel less like an open wound. Started to enjoy her moments alone, to smile when her babies squealed and reached for her. The ambivalence and desperation began to fade.

And on the night Haji returned, reaching for her with cool reassuring hands, it vanished completely.

Saya studies her reflection now.

_Even though I betrayed Haji, even though I hurt him so much…_

_Even then, he still took me back._

_But does that mean he's really forgiven me?_

She swallows past the ache in her throat. The idea of his abandonment _—_ emotional or visceral—is too frightening to contemplate.

_I wish I could take my marriage to Solomon back. But I can't. I've changed so much—no amount of denial or pretending can fix that._

_But… none of that changes the way I feel about Haji. I love him. I always have._

_I wish I could show him that. I wish I could make everything up to him._

But she's unsure, as she quits the bathroom on a deep breath, how to begin.

* * *

She finds him leaning against the wall by the babies' room.

He's listening to their heartbeats as they sleep. Alert for those sniffles that immediately spike to full-tilt wails unless they're plugged with bottles on time. He generally takes charge of those late-night sessions. She's often roused to see him moving silently around the crib, silhouetted blue in the pre-dawn stillness. Murmuring what might be lullabies, or arcane incantations, until her twins go perfectly still, seeming to follow the sound of his voice with their whole bodies.

And it is always there, alone and unguarded, that she sees the soft arc of his smile.

Saya's eyes ache like broken shards in her face. If he can care for her daughters so much, accept them without a qualm for their past, surely—

"They're okay, aren't they?" she asks.

Her Chevalier nods. Hair falling in a gleaming tumble across his face, lax and settled like the lines of his body. Although they were married this afternoon, although she's half-sure he's waited as intently as she for the babies to go to sleep, his manner betrays no amatory impatience.

He looks like he always does lately. As if he's holding his breath, afraid to exhale too hard and knock her down. Or perhaps just afraid to inhale and snuff up some remnant of  _Solomon_  on her skin.

Saya wishes she could gather the nerve to go up to him. Press herself against him in a silent plea for reconciliation, ask for that sweet restorative kiss that will make everything all right. She wants to melt into that calm he resonates and  _be_ , until this terrifying reserve vanishes and she  _knows_  he's forgiven her.

But she is even more terrified to try.

"I wish… we could've had two glasses of wine or something."

"Wine?"

"Mm. You know. As a celebratory toast, maybe. But Miss Julia says I'm still not supposed to have alcohol. It just…gets into the twins' meals when I feed them. I wouldn't be a very good mother if I got my children tipsy, would I?"

Haji's lips twitch, either a grimace or a smile. "Saya, you know there's no need."

"Are you sure? Do you, maybe, want a blood pack instead? Kai brought them over because we were almost out, so you can—"

"Saya, it's all right. I'm not really hungry."

She sidles closer, brushing a hand along the edge of his sleeve. A test, like all her gestures have been so far. To see how comfortable they can be together. What each can be allowed with the other. "You really don't seem to eat enough, you know. I mean, not as much as I know you could be. One level, the self discipline's admirable. But I-I don't want you  _starving_."

"Starving? Who says I am?"

She focuses on the little buttons on his cuffs. The way he's looking at her, with such simple uncomplicated pleasure, seems to blot her ugly misgivings as if they never existed. Still, she keeps the conversation on neutral territory, afraid to venture further.

"Would you eat more, if I got the walls painted a different color?"

"The walls?"

"Mm. They say the color of the walls affects peoples' appetites. Well—not  _mine_ , because I'm always hungry anyway. But—maybe we should get the ones here done in red or something."

The word 'we' brings an imperceptible glow to his eyes. Aloud, he murmurs, "Red could be... dramatic. Warm. But wouldn't it make the rooms seem darker?"

"You're right. We should probably keep it soft. Like in—"  _Not green_. "Light blue. A—a nice, calm, peaceful blue. I'm sure there's lots of shades we could choose from."

"We can go downtown and pick up a catalogue tomorrow, if you wish." His hand comes up to brush the hair from her brow. She leans in, her breath catching. "But it's been a long day. Would you like to go to bed now?"

There's absolutely nothing seductive to the question. He's asking only if she wants to sleep. Naturally he won't be joining her.

Saya bites her lip. She needs to bridge this gap between them some way. But unless someone takes the initiative, it will keep widening. Silence is the true adversary here. What separates her most from Haji _—_ just like in the war.

The longer she keeps it, the deeper between them it will sink.

"I-I'll go to bed if you'll come too."

Haji blinks.

Fear hangs fragile and sticky as a cobweb. She pushes through it on a deep breath.

"Haji. Please tell me the truth. Are you all right with all this? With living here with me, taking care of the girls?"

"Saya, of course I—"

"I'm not asking so you can reassure me, Haji. I want to know how  _you_  feel. I know how much I hurt you before—I can't tell you how sorry I am. But—"

"But… what, Saya?" His gaze opens, wary and interrogative.

She looks away. Dread is a prickling bolus in her throat.

"Haji, did you… take me back because you just felt bad for me? Or because you really forgave me? Because I-I want that so much. I want to make everything up to you. Except maybe…I'm no good for you anymore like this."

"No good for me? Saya, what are you—"

"After everything I did, maybe—you just don't love me the same. Maybe you  _can't_." Tears seep from her eyes. She dabs them away. "Haji… you're under no obligation to stay with me if you don't want to. You've always been free to go—I don't want you to be unhappy after everything else I did. If you ever tell me you want leave, I-I won't hold it against you."

Haji frowns. His cool fingers skim along her jaw, making her aware of how overheated her skin is.

"Saya, why would you think I want to leave?"

His gentle gaze is too much to endure. She shies away. "I'm sorry, Haji. I'm so sorry I betrayed you. I wish I could take everything back—I wish I could be the way you would've wanted me to be. But I  _can't_ , and I—"

He realizes what she's getting at. "Saya… that doesn't matter to me. You have changed, but none of that even begins to touch who you are. How can you deem yourself unwanted just by—"

Tears stream down her cheeks, sharp and searing as acid. "I just  _feel_  that way, Haji. I keep remembering how I betrayed you—no matter what else I do, I'll never be able to erase that."

"Saya—" Stunned, he reaches for her.

She jerks away, a sob bubbling out. "Haji,  _please._ Just tell me. Have you really forgiven me? B-because if you can't, I'll let you do whatever you want, to take possession of me again. I'm still yours—I never stopped loving you. I wish I could make it up to you, but I—"

He winces when she crosses her wrists, offering them to him as if bound. His hands close around them, gently pressing them back. "Saya—please. Stop this. You don't need to keep begging for my pardon. That's not what I want from you."

"Then what—? What do I need to do? Please, tell me so I—"

And then he snatches her close, soundless as a shiver, silencing her pleading with a kiss. She stiffens, but not from shock. A flood of relief breaks through her. She isn't prepared for the intensity of his kiss, the shudder it feeds down her spine. Isn't prepared to for the tears slipping from her eyes, sliding like liquid contrition between their fused mouths.

A noise curls from her throat, almost a keen. Haji's draws back on a ragged breath, resting his forehead against hers. In the pale lamplight, his eyes seem embossed in glass.

"Saya, please. You have nothing more to apologize for. I love you as much as ever. I did then and I do now. Nothing can change that."

Her entire body burns, billows of pain rattling her shoulders. "I'm sorry, Haji. I'm so sorry I abandoned you. But it wasn't because I wanted to hurt you. You understand that, don't you? I just thought I was doing the right thing. Except I was so stupid, so so thoughtless—"

Trapping her head between his hands, he covers her mouth with his again. The kiss is a devouring reclamation. She can feel his heart hammering, echoing sharply with her own. Quivering, she leans up on tiptoe, threading her arms tight around his neck to meet him, keep him. His mouth, not spicy hot like Solomon's, is cool and sublimely familiar. Like coming  _home_. A wave of gratitude gusts through her—not drowning in a mindless flood like when kissing Solomon, but held buoyant. Immersed into this feverish discourse of lips and tongues.

When Haji draws back, her eyelashes are webbed with tears.

"You forgive me, don't you, Haji? Please.  _Please_  tell me you do?"

He doesn't answer. Only edges her backward, cool lips fluttering on her forehead, to the door of her room.

* * *

This is nothing like those powerless manic incoherent times she shared with Solomon.

Recalling those nights always reminds her of a dance. A seductive sequence of bodies and movements, his, hers. A kiss, a caress, an embrace, all shimmering to culmination.

But the moment Haji's lips meet hers, a thrill races through her. More than excitement—but the raw relief of a mid-fall rescue.

Even now, in a million ways, her life rests in his hands.

She expects Haji to deposit her flat on the mattress, covering her like a pinion. Instead he sets her at the foot of the bed, kneeling at her feet. Lips brushing hers, as if seeking permission, until she parts them for his sleek tongue to dip into. His hands feel both light and heavy on her fevered skin. He peels her clothes off carefully, as if unwrapping the bandage from a fresh wound.

Her body must seem so different to him now. She's lost the weight from her pregnancy, but there's a fullness to her figure that was never there before. She's avoided examining herself in mirrors when bathing or dressing. Can't bear to look at any part, without associating it to Solomon's mouth, his touch.

God, all those  _things_  she'd permitted him do to her… the memory still fills her with roiling shame. She can almost hear Solomon's voice as if right in her ear.

_You think that he'll accept you after all you've done? That he will see you the same way? Saya, you know that isn't possible._

She stiffens, awash in sudden confusion.

Then Haji's fingers coax away her upraised hands, gently kissing each palm in turn. And his soft blue gaze, one that can't hide the hot yearning glint, reminds her all over again she has nothing to be afraid of.

Hooking her fingers in his waistband, she tumbles him on top of her. But even as she tugs off his clothes, pushing aside shirts and pants to relish in the cool rub of his skin, she's trembling so much it may as well be her first time, with him or anyone. Their first few kisses are mistimed. She breathes raggedly into his mouth, skin pebbling all over.

Concerned, Haji draws back. "Are you all right?"

"Y-Yes—" She wants to lie, but his gaze scoops her right open. Pressing her lips to his breastbone, she whispers. "I-I think I'm too nervous to do this right."

"What do you mean, 'right'?'"

She traces a shaky finger across his lips, slips it into his mouth. "I—I want this to be perfect for you."

He smoothes the drying tears from her cheeks, leaving streaks of wet. In the silver glow filtering through the blinds, he is supernaturally pale. Dramatically thin and sharp-cut—yet so beautiful.

"I don't want you to be any different than you are, Saya," he says. "You're here with me. I have everything I could ask for."

Something inside her crumbles at this, tears spilling freely. Haji draws her in, but she makes no sound as he dots kisses across her salt-slippery cheeks. Soft as licks of snowfall, shivering her all over. They tangle across the sheets, sparking and teasing with lips and hands. She expects it to be fast, frantic, like she and Solomon went after a spat. Wild motion obliterating all thought. But Haji makes it into something else, a careful exploration that churns her to lithium.

Luxuriantly, he combs her hair back through his fingers. Traces his hands reverently along her body, cool over warm. Cradling and teasing each breast, rolling the nipples until they are tight and springy. Stroking her belly, her thighs, until her long muscles tremble, skin hot and pebbling. She stirs on shuddery sighs, allowing him to hear all her nervousness.

She's had months to grow accustomed to such intimacies—and dozens more—with Solomon. Yet she can't pretend at confidence here. 

Desperation, the residuum of raw fear, clings to her like a second skin, a crazy thirst.

Wrapping herself around Haji, she kisses him, dizzy and depth-charged. Against the spun-glass length of him, she pulses heat. Her wakening body feels like a mess of subdermal tremors, the ache threading from her brainstem down to her groin. 

Spanning his shoulders in her palms, she traces the cool lines of his body. Relearns his contours like a starveling. Purring, Haji presses himself full length against her, skin to skin; his erection makes a wet kiss on her belly. Shakily, she takes it in hand. Its coolness and fullness aren't like Solomon's, but feel good. Give her the bittersweet promise she'd once half-dreaded, of being nearly too much.

Shivering, Haji buries his face in her hair to stifle his noise. His body becomes an expanse of taut muscle poured across hers. Sends her racing mindlessly to the next step, so she is winding her thighs around him, tying an awkward ribbon to urge him closer. Her own body is already liquid for him. Aching to be filled. She breathes in short imploring pants.

"Haji—now, please—"

"Shh." With effort, he disentangles himself from the clinging bow of limbs. One thigh up between hers, tenderly pinning back her hands. He traces her lips with his, slipping his tongue into her mouth. Languid kisses that make her throb. "Not so soon."

" _Please_ —I—"

"Sssh."

His mouth is a shock on hers. Cool-hot. Delicious. Gorging on her gasps, as if she is the only nourishment left. He's always spoken more with his actions than his voice. She can feel his awe, his lust for her, in his touch—but also his unwavering restraint. She whimpers, pressing yearningly against him. Feeds in turn on the deep noises rumbling from his throat.  _Appassionato_ to Solomon's  _capriccioso_.

Her moments with Solomon were always so volatile. A savory sparking flare-up. Whereas with Haji everything is blooming more slowly. The bliss of long-starved patience: deep and indefinably intense at its core.

Bit-by-bit, Haji's aura darkens. Yet he keeps kissing her, over and over, his fingers threaded in her hair. Not stopping until her lips are raw and each touch becomes a hot lick of pleasure up her spine. Between sweet commas of his tongue, he drives himself across her pelvis, the cradle of stymied sensation, with lazy stirring motions. She shudders, throat giving up pitiful blossoms of sound, half-frantic and near-tears with the enormity of her need. Her heart feels like a gong resonating through her body; she is vibrating all over for him.

At last, their lips break; she pants against his mouth. "Please. I-I can't take this—"

"Ssh. Just a little longer, Saya." He smooths her hair. Nuzzles her right ear, tugging at the lobe with his teeth. Her eyes flutter shut, and she rocks in place, her spine trying to define itself in a curve under Haji's sheltering weight. "I just want a taste. Afterwards, I promise—"

"Mmm?"

Cool fingers trace the escutcheon of her bloodstone, diverging to envelop each breast in a cool palm. Tongue swirling deliciously across each nipple. Letting her feel his fangs once in a while; the acerbic sensation making her squirm. His long hair strokes her skin—a silky black stormcloud. And then his mouth closes on one nipple, biting none-too-gently. The shock judders down Saya's body. She lets off a keen.

But Haji will not let her go. Holding her down, he suckles on her breasts, hard and loving, until they are almost sore. Hands gripping tight to her arms; not stopping even when she begins to mewl and toss beneath him. The pleasure-pain seethes through her, makes her frantic. Whole body lifting itself off the mattress and thudding down, again and again. Her harsh cries catch in her throat.

"Please— _please_ —"

She feels the vibration of his starved moan against her. He looks like he has trouble calling himself back from an edge, a limbo beyond the moment. He takes a few breaths and then nuzzles at her again, gentler, more careful. Slips lower to paint wet curlicues across her belly, the seal of her navel, the trembling sweep of her inner-thighs. Tongue tracing along the crease of where they melt into groin, and then enveloping her, all at once, in the wet astonishing coolness of his mouth.

Overheated, stirred-up, Saya jerks and cries out. He is tender, plying her with kisses without end. Kisses she barely feels, except that they make her shiver; delicious silvery shivers that overlap each other, like whorls in a pool. Panting, she stirs across the sheets; his hands hold her down. She can hear herself pleading him—high mewing sighs. But Haji keeps her suspended on a frenetic quivering edge. Not speeding up, not building a rhythm. Letting her feel nothing but the friction of his mouth, the slickness of her own hunger. Finding what makes her gasp, writhe, sob, with just trailing fingers and melting tongue-flicks.

When she can't bear it any longer, she snatches at his hair. "Haji—no more. I can't—"

Seeing what it costs her to beg, Haji lets himself be dragged up. His mouth opens cool and wet against hers, heating as she carves kisses into it. "Saya—"

The word melts on a growl as her sharp fangs cut his lower-lip. Blood floods into the kiss, salty-sweet on their tongues. She sucks on it greedily, and Haji moans into her mouth, the sound fizzling through her—electric.

His hungry candor expels all her shyness. She rolls him gently over, hovering on all fours. Fingers unraveling his blue hair-ribbon, smoothing the strands so softly he shivers.

"Saya, what—?"

"Ssh. I want to give you some kisses too. On your mouth and other places. Please just let me."

He starts to answer, but she captures his face in her hands. Lips pressing to his brow, eyes, nose, and finally his mouth, which parts on hers with a low sigh. His body feels like an alabaster goblet under her palms. She starts off slow, memorizing each pale lineament. Tongue laving a hot wet line along his throat. Dipping into the tempting hollow beneath, a little bowl to gauge his pulse. Loving the way he gasps when she does this, the way his breath quickens as her fangs graze along his chest. She swirls her tongue across one nipple, and he kicks his head back, fingers combing through her hair. She scratches lightly at the other, blowing on the first, wet from her mouth.

His skin is salty with rising perspiration. Cool as water beneath. Tracing the lines of his ribs with her teeth, she gnaws the ridge of one hipbone, streaking white skin in delicate pink. He hisses, but keeps his eyes open. Drinking in the sight of her, sliding flushed and tousled along the length of him, body lit up in stripes from the moonstruck blinds. Dazed by the thought of what she's about to do.

His pulse flutters as she plays her tongue and lips and teeth on him. She listens greedily to the stifled gasps he emits; how his muscles jitter to her slow-flowing rhythm as she acquaints herself with every inch of him. Once, twice, she feels him bite in a groan, clutch at her shoulders, her hair, only to recoil and fist the sheets as if in self-reproach. Whole body tense as a struck tuning fork, vibrating to her touch.

Her own body slides across his with sweat and the hot lather of arousal, half-melted in sympathy with his pleasure. Whimpering around her mouthful, building an inexorable pace, she hitches herself around the hard segue of his thigh, her legs a tightly-clamped lock so she can rock against him. Ashamed yet shameless, her breath sawing through her nose as she sucks, hollowing her cheeks, swirling her tongue around him, until Haji is rasping out his own erratic cadences of urgency in turn.

" _Saya_ —"

She lifts her head to see the expression that goes with the ragged voice. His eyes are liquid, pleading. Each breath telegraphing the single question.

 _Now_?

Flushing, she nods. Unresisting as he draws her up in a kiss, hot and worshipful, all hesitation lost. Hands stroking her everywhere, over and over, as if assuring himself she's real, not an apparition. She sighs and curls under his touch, letting him ease her back, legs fanned shyly open to fit him over her, wrists pinned gently over her head.

Until all at once, memories of another first time, another bed, Solomon's warm skin overlapping hers, invade.

She freezes, recalling how he'd taken a breath exactly the way Haji does, smoothing the hair from her face. Whispering in her ear, coaxing her to open up wider for him, make room. He'd felt so different to her that night. So sweetly sure and enveloping, that after adjusting to the discomfort, the unfamiliar sensations, she'd let herself go bit by bit, slid into pure oblivion.

Only to lose herself completely.

Her eyes burn. She shuts them tight.

Then Haji releases her wrists. Slipping his arms under her shoulders, he frames her face in both hands.

"Saya. Please don't."

"Wh-what?"

"Whatever you're remembering, don't. Please stay with me."

She forgot she could always trust him to know her thoughts.

He breathes gently against her lips, barely touching them. Yet the contact shivers her all over, feverish. Each night with Solomon, she'd tried so hard to forget him. But now as Haji pushes slow and heavy into her, filling her on a warm upsurge she moans and flows up to meet, she forgets about everything but  _him_.

_Yes._

A shudder races through them, sharp but gratifying. Haji gasps and lets his eyes fall shut, lets her melt beneath him on a gusty sob. The engulfing motion, his body, everything overloading her—a delicious shock of near-pain and then an exquisite feeling of stretching, being filled inch by inch. Her hands starfish the sharp bones of his back. She can feel his muscles bunched there, feel him trembling with the effort to remain still. His weight envelops her like a benediction.

"H-Haji..." It's the only word her lips can form. Eyes blood-red, hanging enraptured on his.

Then he leans in for a helpless kiss, and she pulls him in like a sea-hydra, mouth and limbs and deep from the inside—a hot slick pressure that shreds all language apart.

They start a syrupy rocking, to the aria of her shivering whimpers, his thready gasps. Sometimes stopping completely, long trembling pauses, savoring the drenched saturation between their bodies. His dark hair streams around them in a satin web, heavy-lidded eyes meeting hers between each fervid kiss. Every outstroke perilous, every return like a molten glide into quicksilver.

She realizes she's grown used to Solomon's methods; feeling conquered with every touch. Never imagined it could be this way. Entire conversations transcribed through shared gazes alone; the hungry sweep of her palms along his knotted back; the delicious slide of skin on skin.

Everything slow, slow. Liquid and seamless and full.

"Saya. Saya." He whispers into her mouth, like gulps of fresh air. She answers in kitten mewls, all she can manage, desperate to stretch this out, keep this perfection intact. Arms and legs wrapped tight around him. Whole body quivering from the pleasure of holding him like this

Must've been  _dead_  all along, to have gone without it.

Without  _him_.

The tears come again, anguished, grateful; Haji doesn't kiss them away so much as sip at them. She is awash—inside, outside—the air between them filling with waves of heat and breath. If not for the anchor of his weight, she might've been poured into a dark sea of sensation, the pleasure surging nearly into pain. Too much, not enough,  _so right_. She is making helpless noise, a croon that goes on and on, rising and falling as she gives in to his languorous cadence, letting him take his time, all the time they both have ever wanted.

Aware of the hot fascination of his gaze, his eyes a superbright blue in the pale angles of his face. Watching her.

Then Haji's mouth covers hers, and all she can manage are broken subvocalizations muffled by their kisses, as if to tell him something with her mouth, with her whole body.

She wishes this would never stop. Impossible to believe she'd lived as if she would never have him—or to live without ever having him again. Floating on his skin and mouth and hands, the fullness and heaviness and sweetness of him. The way he melts her into a state at once blissed-out and frenzied, their bodies caught in a trance of wet friction, a grind done in their own secret bubble.

It goes beyond intimacy. It is an exultation.

Their lips break on a lull, allowing her to make room for speech.

"I'm sorry, Haji," she breathes. "I'm so sorry for everything—"

Eyes shut, Haji presses his forehead to hers. "Saya—please don't cry anymore. It's over now."

"I know. Just—this doesn't have to mean you've forgotten what I did. It doesn't have to mean—you forgive me."

His eyes open. "I know."

She freezes. The air suddenly crackles like a lit fuse.

_Oh God._

This is it. What she's been dreading all along. His final retribution.

Fitting for him to dish it out now, when she's her most vulnerable. He'd been that way with her all those years. And in return, she'd butchered him.

But Haji only lowers his head and kisses her softly.

"Saya—we've both made mistakes, but there is no reason for us to keep score. I never want to be—a constant reminder of regret for you. I love you more than ever."

"Haji…"

"Please—you don't need to keep punishing yourself this way. What good would it do? Constant grieving doesn't change anything. It just—brings more grief." He takes her head in his hands. Lays kisses on her face, all around her lips. "You have nothing to make up to me. This isn't irreparable. All I want is for you to live on. Without pain or regret. I just want you to be happy again. Can you—please try that for me?"

His soft gaze slices her like a shard. Tears spill from her eyes, riding on a sob he swallows into his mouth.

In this ugly existence, he reminds her, each moment, that some things are real, solid, and worth going on for. Shows her that love needs to be cherished, not squandered and defended against, because in any minute it could shatter in the brutal crunch of life. In the face of that,  _impossible_  to imagine going without him. She couldn't leave him for the solace of death.

And no matter how much she loves him, he'll always love her tenfold more.

They're still moving together, languid and loose-limbed, but the fulcrum picks up now. An insistent grinding rhythm that makes Haji hiss and clench his jaw, makes her breath unravel and her thighs shake. Entire body flowing like water with his, sweat-slicked and yielding, to the ongoing sonata of her pleading cries, his seething moans.

He keeps his eyes on her, drinking in her tears, and she never once looks away.

Release hits in deep waves, a wrenching electric convulsion. She tries to fight it off; wanting to hold his gaze till the last moment, watch him fly apart. But he's already urging her higher, forcing her to a helpless upswell until she's surging up in sobs beneath him, again and again, nails blazing across the slippery skin of his back.

The room pulses out; consciousness narrowing only to when Haji crests after her, full-bodied and rigid, his harsh cry echoing through her with a sensation of completeness.

Their ragged breathing fills the darkness as he dissolves against her, tears trailing hot on her sweaty skin. She holds him tightly, every sinew vibrating, snatching gasps of air between each dopplering heartbeat. His body is still fused to the throbbing seam of her, lips visiting her drowning eyes and gasping mouth in an urgency almost prelude to encore—and she sobs softly, whether from the surplus of their mutual hunger, or the gratitude pulsing through her, she can't tell.

His hands slip up to unclasp her bloodstone, and she lets it drop, merely returning his famished kisses until all thought shimmers to fog.

* * *

In the dark, dawn forms a penumbra at the blinds. Half-melted beneath Saya, Haji feels her sigh against the pillow of his chest. His arms are clasped tight around her, a circle to hold her close. Wanting to absorb her skin and scent into every pore of himself. He's irradiated by her closeness, her heat and firefly allure. The room, the bedsheets, give off a concentrated aroma of her that dizzies him with every inhalation.

_She's here..._

_She's really here._

He still can't believe it. Has to keep touching her, again and again, memorizing her heartbeat, as if it holds him anchored to reality.

When she stirs, he strokes her hair without thought. "Go back to sleep, Saya. The babies aren't awake yet."

She blinks, meeting his gaze. Languid and rosy-cheeked as a  _Boucher._ Beautiful in her startled disarray. Then a soft smile blooms. "Don't scare me like that, Haji."

"Like what?"

"For a moment I almost didn't remember where I was. I thought I was back with—" A pause.

Against his will, Haji's muscles tense.

_Almost thought you were where?_

_With… him?_

Then her eyes meet his, clear and soft. "I dreamt I was in Omoro, and that I'd fallen asleep while my father's fried prawns caught fire. Then the fire-extinguisher started talking in your voice." A sigh, contemplative. "It was a good dream."

He's glad of that. Since returning here, her sleep has been fitful, sporadic at best. A few times, he's heard her sob out loud, crying for Solomon. Not yearningly, but the way someone might call for a victim in a shipwreck. Helpless and aggrieved. But rather than inciting his envy, it only fills him with a sick sympathy.

In many ways, he knows that she blames herself for ruining Solomon's life. His destruction is yet-another burden on her conscience.

But no apparent doom weighs Saya down at this moment. Burrowing closer, she rubs her smooth shins along his calves. Soaking his grateful skin with her wonderful heat. "Are the babies really still sleeping? I can't tell by their heartbeats."

"I can. It's still three hours until their breakfast time."

"Three hours?" She smiles softly, twinkling. "Still lost time to make up for."

His lips curve the slightest in turn. "Please don't tempt me. We wouldn't be able to get out of bed then. And you already know I'm incapable of saying no to you."

She exhales on a giggle. Pressing a kiss to his chest, where her cheek rests. The contact fizzles through him; he skates his palms along her neck, drawing her lips to his. She gives herself to the kiss with an almost childlike sweetness. Except for her hand, skimming along his chest to disappear under the sheets, in a route that isn't childlike at all.

Strange, how in the early days, during their first flush of physical intimacy, she was never so yielding, so coaxing. Too much on her mind back then. Dark, empty thoughts of the war. The disorientation of dropping from the heights of adrenaline into stultifying ordinariness. Her own regrets and insecure fears. All of it calcifying rather than abrading away the shell she'd grown around herself over the decades—so even hers and Haji's sweetest moments could curdle into tears without warning.

Joining him in bed last night, the tears had resurfaced. But there was no denying Saya's entire joy: her eyes, bright and overflowing in the pale zebra-stripes of the moonlit blinds, fixed on his between their hungry couplings. Her silky, mesmeric kisses. The helpless love passing between their bodies like pure oxygen. After their first exquisite bout, she'd perched astride his hips, riding him in a languid roll and struggling to make it last. By then, Haji's own restraint had utterly collapsed. Saya in his arms, stunned and trembling and crying his name, was the culmination of every feverish boyhood dream he'd jerked awake to at the Zoo, every walking fantasy he'd not dared to entertain as a Chevalier.

They finished, as they began: with him on top of her, folded close in her arms, her legs wrapped around his flanks. Not slow, but wild and needy—the sheets soaked in sweat, both of them jerking to each breath on moans. It took him a while to trust her encouragement; she was so small, so frighteningly vulnerable in the grip of her desire, sightless and senseless and near-mindless as he built a rapid rhythm—pushing her to the edge, only to hold her off it, then coax her higher. Yet so strong too; years on the battlefield, watching her cut down enemies twice her size, and Haji was unprepared for what she could do, once stripped of her girlish inhibitions.

The enormity of what her body could demand of his.

She is so different from the Saya he remembers. But with no real difference at all. No more the shy hesitant girl, still learning her own dimensions. She seems to have grown into herself, into what she is. That confidence and intensity he so loves are still part of her. Just that much closer to the surface.

On one level, it makes him feel as if he's running to catch up with her. But on another, as if he's experiencing a reunion with a long-forgotten friend.

Simple gratitude can't express his joy at finding himself here with her. He wants to sink into her, drink her in like rainwater.

_Solomon probably had this every day and never even saw it._

Or perhaps he did, and it was the only thing that kept him alive.

Haji doesn't want to think about it. But when Saya draws away, her light air has vanished. Threading her fingers through his, she breathes, "I'm so glad to be back with you again. I almost can't believe I'm here." Uncertainties corkscrew in her eyes. "Haji... you have forgiven me, haven't you?"

"A million times over, Saya. Please don't worry about it anymore." He circles her closer, pressing kisses to her forehead, her nose, her chin. Her skin gives off a feverish heat. She bites her lip, as if trying to rein in her doubts. But he can feel her whole body trembling around the force of them.

His cool lips brush her brow, fluttering through her hair. Quietly, he asks: "Saya… tell me one thing?"

"Hm?"

"How much of it was my fault?"

"What?"

"That night, when you left to be with Solomon. How much was I to blame for it?"

"Haji…" She draws back to stare.

"Please. Tell me."

"Haji—none of it was your fault. It was… it was all me. You know that."

"How can I believe it?" He strokes her hair. "It takes two people to break any relationship, Saya."

"That's not true. Sometimes…it takes just one person to wreck it. I-I learnt that, when I was with Solomon. And we both paid and paid for it. One of us still is." Her skin pebbles. Haji can feel her fighting tears. He gathers her closer on instinct.

"Haji—I was feeling so trapped and miserable after the war ended. I'd been feeling that way for so many years… but suddenly it seemed like the only thing I was capable  _being_. All I wanted was to escape it. I wanted to… not be  _me_  anymore. I should've told you. But—but you know how I get about these things. I was too afraid to ask for help." Swallowing, she meets his eyes. "But all I learnt from leaving you... was that I can't do this without you at all. I wouldn't dream of trying."

He turns aside his gaze. "Really, Saya?"

" _Yes_. So much."

He sits up, keeping his arms around her. She tips her head to meet his gaze. Wide-eyed and wobbly as a kitten in his grasp. "But that's exactly why I'm asking where I went wrong, Saya. I… I don't want you to feel the way you did before. I want to know how to take care of you better."

Stunned, she lays a hand on his cheek. Traces his mouth with her thumb. "You  _do_  take care of me. Every second you spend with me, you take care of me. Even when you never say anything."

He presses a kiss to her palm. "You wouldn't have sought out Solomon if it were true. Please, tell me how I can—"

"No. Don't you see? I didn't go to Solomon because I had a problem with  _you_. I went to him because I had a problem with  _me_. A problem I take with me, everywhere I go. Myself."

"Saya—" Unnerved, he stares at her. Each time she apologizes to him, it's as if the ground has swung up to crush the sky. The position seems to wrong, so  _unnatural_.

She shivers, dropping her head to his shoulder. Eyes shut, struggling against resurgent regret. "I was trying to recapture something with Solomon. A moment in time. Of back when I knew nothing about my past, and I still had illusions to cling to. Except all I did was lie to myself. To him. By the end of it, we both were so unhappy. And it was all my fault." She swallows hard. "He was unhappy even before that, though. I think he always had been. He was all alone, all the time. No one to talk to, to share his life with. He'd committed crimes that were just unthinkable. He kept on running from them, because he was so riddled with guilt. At one point … he actually told me to kill him."

"He—?"

"He said he should have died a long time ago. That he wanted be free of it all. And that was when I realized—" she takes a breath, "That was when I  _knew_  what a mistake I'd made. I belonged with you. Not him. If we stayed together, we'd both have gone under."

Haji stares at her, unsure where this is building up to, unsure of what to say.

"That sort of solitude, it can kill you inside Haji. It can kill all your hope. It's…it's a terrible way to die."

"I know."

"I understand how it feels. To be like Solomon." She opens her eyes. "When I remember… all the slaughters at my hand, something inside me just feels like it's splitting apart. I can't stop thinking about the things I've done, about the monster I was. That I still am. I've tried to put it aside, but it doesn't change the fact that I did all those things. That killer… the one I hate so much… it's still in me. It always will be."

"Saya—" He opens his mouth, but she puts a finger on it.

"Haji—I-I want you to promise me something."

"Promise you—?"

A sick chill infuses him. Memory of that awful train journey. Saya seated facing him, in her rose-colored day gown. That look of such desolate determination on her face.

_I want you to kill me..._

His fingers tighten around her, as if to keep her from plunging into the void again.

_No. Please... please no._

But Saya only meets his eyes, earnest. He can smell the salt of her stoppered tears. "Haji... please promise you won't let me sink into myself again. Stop me when I try. You've always been good at that. You're good at taking on this life, everything we have to suffer in it, and just... enduring it. I want you teach me that. I want you to show me how to be better."

Relief expands his lungs. He frames her face between his hands, pressing his brow to her's. "Saya... you're the one I suffer in this life for. Please don't forget that. I wouldn't be here at all, if not for you. You keep me going—you always have. You have nothing to apologize to me anymore."

Her tears spill then, tangling into wild sobs.

"But I do—I do have to apologize! Because saying sorry isn't enough! It never will be! I have so much to make up to you—I want you to know how important you are to me. I never told you before—and look where it got me! You should get to hear it every  _minute_. You should—"

She would say more, but he's kissing her then, words and breath blending into that single action, and she understands there's no need to say anything else.

She's emerged from the palm of disaster, battered and bruised, but nothing is beyond hope. That night at the MET, racing toward suicide, he'd pulled her back, offering her a future, salvation, and it hasn't changed. He's still here, absorbing her tears, her presence, displacing it with the comfort of his own.

Except this time, she's ready to reimburse in every way she knows how. As long as he's with her, she'll always find the strength to be whole, live on again.

Nothing is irreparable.


	32. Epilogue: Wake Up

And where was I, while you were in arms of your loyal Chevalier?

_Home safe?_

My life, my home, was with _you_. The day you left me, I died as I should have done, that night I drank Diva's blood. Perhaps, in a way, that fortune-teller was right about me all along. Perhaps I really was dead. Perhaps, before meeting you, I always had been.

But if that is true, angel, then you've killed me twice over.

And if I had the choice, I know I'd still crawl back and beg you for more.

Love's a terrible thing.

The night I returned to Prague, I couldn't cry. I didn't have the tears for it. Dead men don't shed tears. Perhaps you felt the same way, when you were without Haji? Perhaps his presence sustained you all along. Wasn't that what you said to me, back in Berlin? That he gave you something I never could?

_Yourself._

I wish I could hate you for going back to him. But I can't. Because I understand how you felt.

I understand, because I felt the same thing for _you_.

Better to die for something you believe in, than spend the rest of your life feeling nothing. Right?

I'm in Nepal right now. I'm outdoors, with mountains everywhere. The air is cold, but I can't feel it. I'm trying to imagine you beside me. Your nose is red, and there's an ermine collar tickling your cheeks. You're smiling at me, the way you used to. That smile that made everything around me bloom.

The more I imagine it, the less I want to do what I came here for.

And the more I want to do it.

There is a winding gorge below me. From this height, it looks almost like a ribbon. Small and thin enough to loop around my finger.

But the drop from this point would kill even a Chevalier.

I don't know how I got here. I should never have let Nathan leave me alone here. I should never have let him drag me along in the first place. But I had to get away from Prague. I can't stand being in that flat anymore. The entire place screams of your absence. The silence is deafening.

The first few days, I prowled the rooms, calling for you and beating at the walls, you know? I would've given anything to be able to hold you again. To _see_ you. I almost wished I could sleep. But there's another cruel joke immortality played on me. I have no way to shut my mind off. I have no way to ever stop remembering you, aching for you.

It will be this way for all eternity.

At night, I crawled into your bed. The sheets still smelt of your perfume. The cinnamon and chocolate one, remember? Your mouth tasted like that, the first night we made love. From the cocoa I gave you—the one you thought I'd meant to poison you with?

You always had such a low opinion of me. But then, it was mostly warranted.

There's a fine line between courting surrender and courting disaster. Isn't there?

I pictured I was back to that night. To feeling your little fingers in my hair and your sweet skin on my lips. I had never imagined such bliss as I knew then. You gave me everything I ever wanted. Gave me _more_ than I knew I wanted.

I could have drifted on that memory for decades.

When I came back to my senses, the pillowcase was soaked. There were tears everywhere. I'm still not sure how they started. I'm not sure they were even mine. But who else's could they be? The room kept blurring, and my face was wet. No matter how many times I scrubbed it with my hands, it stayed wet.

And it struck me, all over again, that you were gone.

I wanted to die then.

I wish I could hate you for leaving me. But I can't. Looking back on it, you never promised me anything, except what you gave me.

And I promised only to love you always, to try and keep you happy.

I suppose I failed at that. Let you down utterly.

But I never stopped loving you.

Does that count for something? Can a promise be broken and kept, both at once?

I have no idea. But I suppose that's my great talent, paradoxes.

Chevalier or traitor. Black or white.

Dead or alive.

You said you loved me, that night. You said I'd always have a place in your heart. I suppose that should give me some solace. But really, it makes everything worse. I can't survive on table-scraps of your affection. It's always been the whole banquet or nothing for me.

I love you. I want you to always belong to me. I never want you to think of Haji again.

Except now that you're back with Haji, you're probably thinking of nothing else _but_ him.

And I know how that feels too.

Because I felt it too, every moment I was with you.

The wind's whispering. It sounds almost like your voice. But then, I hear your voice everywhere. You're all around me, poisoning the very air I breathe.

And each second, I need you more and more.

I can feel my mouth moving. A pressure against my lips. It takes me a minute to realize what I'm doing.

I'm smiling.

Which is odd, because I don't feel happy at all.

A paradox.

Walking into midair is a paradox too. Wind whispering in my ears, at the same time screaming, roaring, also a paradox. I'm falling, and at the same time, it is like I'm flying. The air is empty, yet it presses up against me like a physical pressure. And with every heartbeat, the gorge below gets bigger and bigger.

And my smile grows wider.

I always used to have dreams of falling. Air rushing all around me, whipping my hair and clothes. The ground below, getting closer with every breath. But I'd always wake up, just before I hit the bottom. I never got to see what was on the other side.

This time, I think I'm going to find out.

I'd like to wake up at last.

* * *

_You know what happens when you_ _dream of falling?_

_Sometimes you wake up._

_Sometimes the fall kills you._

_And sometimes, when you fall, you fly._

* * *

Diva had a favorite storybook she liked Solomon to read to her in bed. Every night, just before she dropped off to sleep, she'd curl up beside him and hear him read it out loud, like a child with a doting parent.

The book, hand-written, beautifully illustrated, was full of French fairytales about ghouls, witches, goblins and queens. Endless passion and despair and tragedy. Quite maudlin, if Solomon were perfectly honest with himself.

Diva said the book belonged to _Sister Saya,_ from her Zoo days.

And judging by the book's charred edges, by the faint unfamiliar scent that still lingered along its pages, Solomon had a feeling Diva was telling the truth.

Brother Amshel told him this book was salvaged during the vast fire at the Goldschmidt mansion. A token Diva had insisted on keeping close to her, like a stolen keepsake of her estranged older sister.

 _She used to read this book to me,_ Diva told Solomon once, with a crazy-happy smile. _She'd sit by my door and read it out loud, when I was still living in my tower._

It made Solomon all the more curious, as to what kind of person this _Saya_ was.

And probably what drew him so strongly to her, like a hook in the vitals, that night of the Lycee ball. That faint scent lingering on the book's pages had struck a concurrent chord of recognition in him, piercing his senses over the milieu of human blood and flesh.

Calling, under the floral lilt of her perfume, in a dulcet tune of _come, come to me._

Scent was a powerful trigger for mood and memory, Solomon often mused.

Diva liked inhaling the book's pages too, running her fingers over the exquisite pictures. Her favorite story from the book had been about a lost specter, doomed after suicide to wander the world in a state of perpetual purgatory. Unable to communicate with the humans around him, unable to be heard or felt or seen, no matter how much he yearned for it or screamed.

Trapped like a cipher in the heart of nothing, really.

Solomon grew to know the feeling too well.

Finally, the specter was granted both voice and flesh, by his loved ones' memories of him. The more they remembered him, the stronger his ties to earthly life grew. He was finally granted admittance to paradise, after he met for the last time with the girl he loved, and she forgave him and swore not to forget him.

 _A man's real possession is his memory,_ the story's moral claimed. _In nothing else is he so rich, or so poor._

 _What a stupid story,_ Solomon had thought at the time. _Why should anyone's memories of you matter? They can't stop you from going wherever the hell it is you'll go after you die._

But years later, on that night in New York, where he stood crumbling by a chainlink fence, poisoned by Saya's sword and certain of his own death, he'd summoned Saya's sweet little face in his mind, and wondered if she'd ever remember him.

_Whenever you need me..._

_Call out my name._

* * *

_Five years later…_

It's a sweet picture.

One of his daughters made it. It was during art class, at the kindergarten where Saya sends her and her sister. All the children there were asked to make crayon-drawings of their families. His little one's shows a blue-walled apartment with five people. Two little girls. Two men, and one woman. All with hands linked like a conga line.

And all with dark-hair, except the one man.

Whose hair is blond.

 _That's me,_ Solomon thinks, and beams.

But what's funniest are the scribbles in the background. Images of clocks and pseudo-numbers. _Everywhere_.

Naturally, the teachers were more perplexed by the blond man than the scribbles. According to them, when children draw pictures, they are communicating things that are troubling them. Saya was called up, so they could ask, discreetly, whether there was anything at home she needed _help_ with.

Saya had to explain everything to them, after which the teachers just felt embarrassed for asking.

 _Serves them right for sticking their nose in her family's business,_ Solomon thinks.

By his feet, his daughters play with miniature trains on a carpet, it's patterns organized into rail-lines. Both wearing matching bunny-print pajamas, teeth-brushed and hair done up in pigtails. Ready for bed. In a fit of what he assumes was pique, Saya's named them Lilah and Blanca, respectively.

He enjoys the paradox of their names. Lilah means night, and Blanca brightness. As if the two girls are a matched pair, one unable to exist without the other.

Lilah, the blue-eyed one, makes sputtering noises with her train, like a chugging engine. Beside her, brown-eyed Blanca picks apart the innards of her class-carriage, little pieces laid around her like felled soldiers. Solomon keeps wanting to ask Saya to buy them _dolls_ instead. Trains are for _boys_. His daughters ought to have something more feminine and dainty.

Of course, he never bothers. He knows Saya won't listen to him.

She and Haji are examining the picture, stuck to the fridge with magnets. Saya looks wistful, but devoid of the usual deadweight. Solomon takes a moment to admire her glossy shoulder-length hair and golden-glowy skin. As the years pass, she's filled out and mellowed, begun to smile more. Her laughter has returned, like the bright spark in her eyes. She resembles again, that enchanting girl he met at the Lycee—rare as a ruby in a box of colorless white diamonds.

Electric. Alluring. _Alive_.

Watching her, Solomon is filled with a tenderness that forever renews itself.

It's for that reason alone that he tolerates Haji's hand curling around her waist.

"The teachers must have been disturbed," Haji murmurs.

Saya nods. "You know, I could almost _tell_ they were thinking I was in some sort of a ménage-e-trois. People imagine the most ridiculous things if they aren't set straight on time."

"Did you explain things to them then?"

"Of course. I don't need them passing opinions on how I raise my girls." She pauses, smiling. "Still, I kind of liked watching them cringe. Serves them right for trying to play _gotcha!_ when they don't know the truth."

 _There's my girl._ Solomon says it softly, no neither she nor Haji can hear him.

If they did, he imagines they'd kick up _quite_ a fuss.

"It's funny." Saya traces the picture with a finger. "She even drew clocks everywhere. She can't even count all the way upto ten properly, but she drew clocks. With made-up numbers."

"Perhaps to show that we have limitless amounts of time on our hands," Haji decides.

Solomon nods. One thing about Haji: he certainly gets the gist of things quickly. Sometimes almost as quickly as Solomon himself.

"That's true," Saya whispers, "We do have lots of time. Almost... all of us, anyway."

Her eyes dip, shading. Solomon practically feels her rolling into herself. He knows she's remembering the Bad Thing that happened right after her wedding. The midnight phonecalls, the flurry of horrified questions. The funeral where she'd held tight to Haji's hand, sobbing thickly into his coat. If her Chevalier hadn't been holding her up, Solomon's sure she might have lunged at the fresh grave and started digging into it with her bare hands.

 _He's gone too,_ she'd whispered later at Omoro, slumped between Diva's dejected twins. _Everyone... everyone always dies and leaves._

 _No... no, that's not true,_ one of the twins hiccoughed. _We'll all remember him. We'll think of him and talk of him every single day, and that's what really matters._

And Solomon, standing between Saya's sleeping babies and a somber-eyed Haji, had silently agreed.

Solomon sighs now. He wants to go up to Saya, take her in his arms and whisper, _don't be sad, angel… it's all over._

But he doesn't need to. Haji's already encircling her closer. "Saya? What's the matter?"

"Nothing. Just…" She glances at the picture again. "Why do you think she drew us that way? All together like that?"

"We could ask her, I suppose."

They glance fondly at Lilah, crawling with Blanca across the carpet. Utterly absorbed in their game of trains. Smiling, Solomon settles cross-legged between them. The twins barely glance up. He hums for them, a whisper-light lullaby from decades past. But the girls' _choo-choo's_ are so shrill, he knows they can't hear it.

"…Family," Saya says then.

Haji looks at her. "What?"

"She drew him because he's family. One of us."

"That's true."

Solomon smirks at the grudging acceptance in Haji's voice.

_Well, what else would you say?_

One of Haji's pivotal qualities is his inability to hold out against his Queen. Solomon enjoys all the ways in which Saya—and often his daughters—use that against him.

But at the same time, it reassures him that he's left his wife and children in capable hands.

"Besides," Saya adds. "We talk about him so much. Especially whenever Nathan or the twins are over. And there's plenty of pictures of him here."

It's true enough. The wall at the end of the living room is covered in framed photos. Most are of Blanca and Lilah. Skipping and laughing and dancing, all the way from diapers to dresses. Aged one, two, three, five. You'd think they were the most photographed twins in Okinawa, honestly. Saya tends to get very snap-happy when the camera is in her possession.

But these are her daughters, her beautiful veritable little miracles. Solomon knows she has every right to preen.

If he were in her place, he would too.

There are other photos too. Several of Saya and Haji, which he generally avoids studying in much detail. Like that one of them at some photo-booth strip at a funfair. Saya clearly seated in Haji's lap, little fingers in his hair, teeth flashing and bangs mussed. Giggling and kissing him all over his face. Her skin and eyes are aglow; Solomon can't remember when he's seen her look so radiant.

He always wants to mock Haji for that flustered schoolboy blush he wears.

Or the other one, of Saya and Haji's wedding. Haji dressed in typical black, looking so very solemn and _dreary_ ; Saya in a full-sleeve gown of brilliant white silk, lustrous hair flowing around her neck and shoulders. Both standing arm-in-arm, prim and decorous as a true Victorian couple.

They certainly aren't so _prim_ and _decorous_ when the lights go out, as Solomon knows too well.

Personally, his favorite photos are on the far left. Like the one of Omoro from 2005, with Saya's surrogate father, and little brother Riku posed outdoors in the park. And the one of Saya in her old high-school uniform, grinning exuberantly in the Okinawan sunshine. Or the old sepia-toned image of her and Haji from the Zoo days, standing side-by-side in such rigid dignity.

Except, of course, for that spark of mischief in Saya's eyes, visible even from the dull photo-print.

That spark which she's reproduced onto her twins, much like her sugar-edged smile and willful nature.

Solomon likes looking at that version of her, and wondering if they'd have gotten along better, if he'd met her back then.

But he can't ask.

His favorite photo, of course, is the last. Comprising of just him and Saya, from those chocolate-and-cinnabon-filled months before their marriage. Both standing framed by the Okinawan sunset, slightly rumpled from their impromptu picnic with Diva's twins. Saya with her nose winched up and her bangs flying in her face; Solomon with a palm lifted to shade his eyes from the sun, the other resting lightly on Saya's shoulder.

Both glancing not at the camera, but at each other, with a soft piquant interest. Still hopeful for possibilities of their future.

He's amazed Haji let Saya hang that photo up without fuss. At the same time, he's grateful to Saya for doing it—and for placing it amidst her best-beloveds. It makes him feel all welcome. Like part of her family.

In a way, perhaps he finally is.

The twins have crawled underneath the table now. They're slipping off to sleep, toy trains clutched to them like teddy-bears. When Solomon bends over them, murmuring their names, they don't stir.

Saya and Haji smile, crouching soundlessly beside them.

"We should put them to bed," Saya says. "They have to get up early for school tomorrow. Then once we've dropped them off, maybe we can head out for the beach later."

 _Oh dear,_ Solomon thinks. Generally, when Saya wants to 'go to the beach', it means that she's troubled by something.

He wants to ask what—but as always, Haji beats him to it. "What's wrong? Are you feeling all right?"

"Mm. Just… a little wound up. I think I need to burn some energy off."

Haji reaches out, strokes the curve of her cheek. "If you wish, we could drop the girls off at Kai's house tomorrow evening. Head out somewhere nice. Just the two of us?"

 _Yes, you should,_ Solomon sneers. _She's the kind of woman who deserves to be wined and dined. You really don't take her out enough._

Naturally, Haji ignores every word he says.

The man can be such a dull stick sometimes. But he's also thoughtful and attentive, intuitive of Saya's every need. And best of all, patient, which is what Saya requires most. She's still on the bumpy road to recovery, patches of shadow in the light, and Solomon won't deny she can be a very difficult woman to live with.

Isn't sure, if he were in Haji's place, that he could handle her with quite as much fortitude.

That's one of the advantages of being in his position now. He has eons of time to look back on his old life, his old self, and realize just how warped his mindset about Saya was. To realize, like a jaded old man regaling the days of his puissant youth, just how thoughtless he'd been.

To imagine he could possess and conquer her. Make her all his.

Till her dying day, Saya will remain, to her core, unconquerable.

"Perhaps we could go away somewhere after the... anniversary," Haji adds gently. "You're usually in very low spirits the week after. A different scenery could be good for you."

"The anniver—" Saya stops, looking quite stunned. " _Oh_. Oh God. For a moment I nearly forgot. It's so strange. You can be talking about someone, but the real reason why you're doing it... just skips out of your mind."

Haji sidles closer, draping an arm around her shoulders. "I know... that day was not easy for you, Saya."

"It wasn't. It really really wasn't." She swallows. "It's been nearly five years, yet sometimes it feels like less. And more."

Haji rests his cheek on the top of her head. As always, he looks far more sympathetic than Solomon imagines he would. He envies that simple ability Haji has—to just draw in everything troubling Saya and _deal_ with it. Aloof as he appears, he's actually _teemed_ in emotion; a virtual wellspring of it. He feels things on an extraordinarily deep level—and forever rains that capacity on Saya, on the twins, in silent powerful gusts.

 _But you're still such a dull dull stick,_ Solomon smirks. _Always were, always will be._

"Perhaps you'll tell me what kind of present you'd like for the... other anniversary," Haji adds. "At the very least, drop me a hint?"

"A present—?" Saya blinks, and finally catches up with him. "I— _oh_. You mean for _our_ anniversary. Oh, Haji. I'm so sorry. I always do this, don't I? I obsess so much about the—the sad anniversary, that I just completely forget about _ours_! That's not good, is it?"

"It's all right, Saya. We both know it's hard to separate the two. It happened in almost one stroke."

"But that's no excuse. A lot of people might say that—our actions were what led to—to the other. But—it's got to do with so much more, doesn't it?"

 _That's true,_ Solomon concedes.

He just hopes one day Saya will believe this too, and stop blaming herself.

Leaning in, Saya rests her head on the cool fabric of Haji's shirt. "God, Haji. Look at us. _Five years_. Can you believe it? I was so sure I'd have driven you away by now."

Haji lifts her hand to his mouth, kisses each of the fingers with worshipful thoroughness. Solomon rolls his eyes and looks away. "That could never happen, Saya."

"Still, no point getting complacent, is there? I wouldn't ever want to take you for granted. Not again. Not after—everything else that happened." She pauses, then tries to shake the gloom off. "Hey, do you know what the five-year anniversary gift is?"

 _Traditionally, it's wood,_ Solomon muses. _But nowadays, I believe people exchange silverware._

At the same time, Haji says: "It used to be wood. But I think it is silverware now."

"Wood and silverware." She tilts her head, thoughtful. "There are lots of things a man might appreciate that could be bought with both."

"A man? So does this mean I'll get a present too?"

"What? _You_?" Smiling mischievously, she tosses her head, all lofty and queenlike. "I said absolutely no such thing. My living here with you is a gift enough. No other woman would tolerate such a disrespectful and talkative husband as you are."

"Talkative, hm?"

"Insufferably so. And you keep leaving stacks of dirty dishes in the sink, wet towels on the floor, and you always eat the last cupcake in the fridge and use my toothbrush without asking. Oh, and you snore at night." She pouts. "You're sick of me too, aren't you?"

"Beyond belief. I hate you with all my black heart. In fact, I'm planning to slip poison in your tea tomorrow."

They exchange crooked smiles. Solomon dissolves into silent laughter.

_Just remember, Haji. If you poison her, then she'll be mine for certain..._

Haji gently scoops up the dozing twins, depositing them noiselessly in their room. Solomon watches them go, and blows them a kiss. Little Lilah has her blue eyes half-open, caught between hazy dreams and awareness.

Solomon thinks he sees her smile at him.

Saya, settled on the couch, looks half-asleep herself. Eager for some precious alone-time, Solomon joins her. Leaning in, he walks his fingers spiderlike up her shoulder, humming softly into her ear. Saya shivers and turns her head aside, muttering something about the A/C being on too high. Sometimes, when she falls asleep on the couch, Solomon likes to curl up beside her, watch the hypnotic rise-and-fall of her breathing. Other times, he blows cool air into her ear so she wakes with a start—though he generally only does so when the twins are trying to touch the stove, or playing with matches and scissors.

Even now, he likes to keep an eye on his wildcat and her little brood

When Haji returns, Solomon grudgingly puts some space between Saya and himself. The dark-haired Chevalier curls up beside her, drawing her into his embrace.

"Are you all right?"

"Mm."

"Because I... I'm sorry if I had to remind you of the anniversary. The sad one. It's hard to celebrate a marriage when there's a death so closeby in the calendar."

Saya shakes her head. "That's not true. I was in love with you long before we married. Long before the... bad thing. You remember that night at the MET, don't you? The first time you told me you loved me?"

He smiles. "How could I forget?"

"Well, think about it. That was also the night I killed Diva." Sighing, she lays a finger on his lips. "I'll always be unhappy, when I remember that night. But then I think of all those things you said to me... when you kissed me... and that makes it easier to bear."

Haji presses his cool brow to her's. "I know, Saya. I just feel sorry that celebrating our anniversary should make you unhappy."

"It doesn't matter. A wedding anniversary's just... a rhetorical acknowledgement of a piece of paper, isn't it? This—what we have here, the girls, our life together, is what's really important. That's a cause for celebration."

"You have a point." Haji slips a finger along the bridge of her pretty nose. "Have I kept you happy this year, Saya?"

Her eyelashes dip; she regards Haji through them with a look altogether too satisfied and smoky for Solomon's comfort level. "What do _you_ think?"

"That you think I talk too much."

"No you _don't_. In fact, you still don't speak as much as I'd like you to. But I do like the nice things you say to me when you do." Smiling, she presses a kiss to his lips, a tantalizing brush of more air than flesh. Her voice drops, languid and teasing. "I like all the other things you do for me with this mouth of yours too. I'm going to save those for later tonight."

Solomon stifles a cough, wanting to combust into flame at this sickening scene of marital bliss.

_Too. Much. Information._

Haji combs his fingers through Saya's hair. Smoky-eyed at first, then sobering. "All the same, Saya. If you'd rather forget an anniversary celebration because of... his death, it's perfectly all right. We've tried to balance both out in the past. But it's never really done any good, has it?"

"No. It hasn't. But—I think that's because we've never really unwinched the two. And we ought to. A—a suicide is an end to all hope and life. A marriage is supposed to be the start of one. And maybe we need to let one go, so we can finally have the other."

"Let one go?"

She shuts her eyes. "Stop letting it be a millstone around our necks. Because... I don't think Solomon would want that. I think he'd be happier if we remembered the good things from his life, instead of the sad ones. Those are the only memories really worth treasuring anyway, right?"

Solomon nods agreement.

_Good. You understand at last._

Haji brushes the hair from her face. "You're still allowed to grieve for him, Saya. I know... how much you loved him."

"Loved him, yes. In love..." She opens her eyes to meet his. "There's a big difference, isn't there? Not that it makes it any less painful. Still... he'll always have a place in my memory. I wouldn't be here at all, if not for him. He gave me the twins, and he... made me realize so much about myself. Wherever he is, I hope he knows I'm thankful to him for that."

Solomon smiles.

_I'm thankful to you too. I was then, and I always will be._

Saya's eyes shift abruptly, glancing beyond Haji, beyond the room itself. And in that moment, Solomon realizes she sees him, sees his ethereal smile and laughing eyes, with full clarity. Her gaze opens like a door to a spectrum of starlight—and through that spectrum, he's linked indelibly to her—to her life, her memories, and her laughing eating breathing children.

And to all the others, who no longer laugh or eat or breathe.

Just like him.

He sees them most vividly in these moments, when Saya's defenses are laid lowest. Sees little Riku, racing around the room in old-fashioned black coattails, prattling in his bright voice about videogames and baseball mitts. Such a contrast to how he'd looked after Diva killed him—bare skin ashen as marble, just as icy.

He sees Saya's adopted father, bustling in the apartment's kitchen. Apron stained with brown soy sauce; hands and face stained with the crimson of his own blood. Calling for her to come to the table; he's prepared a new dish he wants her to taste. Or the Sif, in their inky robes and wary eyes, lurking in the shadows with wide-eyed Lulu and blonde-haired Irene in the forefront. All whispering amongst each other, wanting to go play with Saya in the sunlight.

He sees Saya's more gruesome memories too. All the thousands slaughtered in the Vietnam war, under her brazen screams and swinging sword. Each victim with eyes pleading and mouths agape, splattering blood across the carpet as they lurch toward her. James in full Chiropteran form, eyes aflame, lunging forward and roaring: _You will die for Diva—!_ Karl skulking in the corner, tossing smoldering glances and blue roses at Saya's feet, hissing: _Come, my beloved, let's go to a world all of our own..._

And he sees Diva, his dark-haired light-toed Diva, twirling like a spring breeze across the room, singing her glorious siren's song and laughing her beautiful spine-chilling laugh.

_We're a family at last, Sister Saya._

_Now I'll be with you forever..._

All _of us_ _will._

And when Saya sees these faces, dozens upon dozens, so does he. Sees them, and knows she sees his own among them, like Vega glimpsing Altair beyond the starlit bridge. He's one of the many in the ranks of her unforgettable dead—crowding to reach her every moment, waiting for the slightest gash in her psyche for the bridge to unfurl, so they can cross forward and devour her.

And whenever she sees him, Solomon likes to smile and gently murmur her name. Head tilted, one hand extended, as if inviting her into a dance.

_Please._

_Come with me..._

And sometimes, as if she can't help herself, Saya reaches out a hand, almost tempted to accept his offer.

Until Haji touches her shoulder.

"Saya?"

The spectrum shatters, the starlit bridge collapsing under reality's weight, severing Solomon's link to Saya. And around him, the hundreds of laughing, screaming, prancing specters shiver and swoop away, receding eyeblink-fast to their shuttered corners.

Only Solomon stays where he is, watching the light shine off Saya's beautiful hair as she turns to face Haji again.

"Hm?"

"Are you all right?"

"Yes—" She pauses, as if the answer is something to fully consider. Taking a breath, she lets it go, and at the same time, it's as if she's exhaling something much deeper and heavier from the inside. "Yes. I really think I am."

She lets Haji gently sweep her up then, carry her out of the room like a glowing Harvest bride. While Solomon remains where he is, watching her go. Ready to bide his time at this end of the spectrum, be it decades or centuries, until she's finally crossed that bridge and taken his hand again.

Until then though, he's content to wait, and to watch her live on.

_The universe is shaped exactly like the earth – if you go straight long enough you'll end up where you were._

* * *

_-Fin-_


	33. Bonus Chapter/Alternate Ending

And where was I, while you were in arms of your loyal Chevalier?

_Home safe?_

My life, my home, was with _you_. The day you left me, I died as I should have done, that night I drank Diva's blood. Perhaps, in a way, that fortune-teller was right about me all along. Perhaps I really was dead. Perhaps, before meeting you, I always had been.

But if that is true, angel, then you've killed me twice over.

And if I had the choice, I know I'd still crawl back and beg you for more.

Love's a terrible thing.

The night I returned to Prague, I couldn't cry. I didn't have the tears for it. Dead men don't shed tears. Perhaps you felt the same way, when you were without Haji? Perhaps his presence sustained you all along. Wasn't that what you said to me, back in Berlin? That he gave you something I never could?

_Yourself._

I wish I could hate you for going back to him. But I can't. Because I understand how you felt.

I understand, because I felt the same thing for _you_.

Better to die for something you believe in, than spend the rest of your life feeling nothing. Right?

I'm in Nepal right now. I'm outdoors, with mountains everywhere. The air is cold, but I can't feel it. I'm trying to imagine you beside me. Your nose is red, and there's an ermine collar tickling your cheeks. You're smiling at me, the way you used to. That smile that made everything around me bloom.

The more I imagine it, the less I want to do what I came here for.

And the more I want to do it.

There is a winding gorge below me. From this height, it looks almost like a ribbon. Small and thin enough to loop around my finger.

But the drop from this point would kill even a Chevalier.

I don't know how I got here. I should never have let Nathan leave me alone here. I should never have let him drag me along in the first place. But I had to get away from Prague. I can't stand being in that flat anymore. The entire place screams of your absence. The silence is deafening.

The first few days, I prowled the rooms, calling for you and beating at the walls, you know? I would've given anything to be able to hold you again. To _see_ you. I almost wished I could sleep. But there's another cruel joke immortality played on me. I have no way to shut my mind off. I have no way to ever stop remembering you, aching for you.

It will be this way for all eternity.

At night, I crawled into your bed. The sheets still smelt of your perfume. The cinnamon and chocolate one, remember? Your mouth tasted like that, the first night we made love. From the cocoa I gave you—the one you thought I'd meant to poison you with?

You always had such a low opinion of me. But then, it was mostly warranted.

There's a fine line between courting surrender and courting disaster. Isn't there?

I pictured I was back to that night. To feeling your little fingers in my hair and your sweet skin on my lips. I had never imagined such bliss as I knew then. You gave me everything I ever wanted. Gave me _more_ than I knew I wanted.

I could have drifted on that memory for decades.

When I came back to my senses, the pillowcase was soaked. There were tears everywhere. I'm still not sure how they started. I'm not sure they were even mine. But who else's could they be? The room kept blurring, and my face was wet. No matter how many times I scrubbed it with my hands, it stayed wet.

And it struck me, all over again, that you were gone.

I wanted to die then.

I wish I could hate you for leaving me. But I can't. Looking back on it, you never promised me anything, except what you gave me.

And I promised only to love you always, to try and keep you happy.

I suppose I failed at that. Let you down utterly.

But I never stopped loving you.

Does that count for something? Can a promise be broken and kept, both at once?

I have no idea. But I suppose that's my great talent, paradoxes.

Chevalier or traitor. Black or white.

Dead or alive.

You said you loved me, that night. You said I'd always have a place in your heart. I suppose that should give me some solace. But really, it makes everything worse. I can't survive on table-scraps of your affection. It's always been the whole banquet or nothing for me.

I love you. I want you to always belong to me. I never want you to think of Haji again.

Except now that you're back with Haji, you're probably thinking of nothing else _but_ him.

And I know how that feels too.

Because I felt it too, every moment I was with you.

The wind's whispering. It sounds almost like your voice. But then, I hear your voice everywhere. You're all around me, poisoning the very air I breathe.

And each second, I need you more and more.

I can feel my mouth moving. A pressure against my lips. It takes me a minute to realize what I'm doing.

I'm smiling.

Which is odd, because I don't feel happy at all.

A paradox.

Walking into midair is a paradox too. Wind whispering in my ears, at the same time screaming, roaring, also a paradox. I'm falling, and at the same time, it is like I'm flying. The air is empty, yet it presses up against me like a physical pressure. And with every heartbeat, the gorge below gets bigger and bigger.

And my smile grows wider.

I always used to have dreams of falling. Air rushing all around me, whipping my hair and clothes. The ground below, getting closer with every breath. But I'd always wake up, just before I hit the bottom. I never got to see what was on the other side.

This time, I think I'm going to find out.

I'd like to wake up at last.

* * *

"…Wake up."

Images darted out of his mind like little silverfish, too quick to close his fingers on.

"Wake up."

Names, faces, all melted into fog.

"Wake up, please."

Voices looped around him in a spiral that made him dizzy. He winced, trying to shake them off. The disorienting shift in location—no more tall mountains. No numbing despair. He wasn't tumbling through blackness anymore. Light shone through his closed eyes.

"Sir? Wake up, please. We've arrived."

A female voice was speaking to him. All prior images slid from his consciousness, new sensations intruding. Dull hiss of airplane air-conditioners. The ghostly scents of all the humans who'd occupied the first-class section. Outside, he could make out the dim roar of vehicles.

He opened his eyes.

_Where—?_

Ah yes.

Vietnam. At the airport, for his visit to Karl at the Lycee.

"Sir?"

He smelt the perfume overlaying the flight attendant's fatigue. Blinking, he met her eyes.

"—Yes?"

"Sir? Are you all right?"

"Mm. Yes, I—"

Why did he feel so strange? As if he wasn't supposed to be here, as if he'd awoken from some massive bender, confronted by a lost slice of time.

"Sir?"

He blinked, shaking the disorientation off.

"Pardon me. I must have dozed off."

_The sedatives I took before this trip must were more potent than I realized._

The woman's tense expression eased. "That's all right It was a long flight. But we need to start the clean up now. "

"Of course. My apologies for the bother."

"It's no problem. Are you sure you're all right?"

"Absolutely. Thank you for waking me."

He smiled this time, and she did too. Not exactly flirting, but her eyes lingered.

He never tired of what he could do with his smile, what it always came in use for. But he preferred its use for people of influence, for that gave him power. This woman was of no consequence—he had little interest in human women for their own sakes. As Cinq Fleches' CEO, he attracted them in droves.

And there was only one woman who would ever possess his heart.

His Queen, asleep in her cocoon.

_Diva._

Already her memory made him flare, longing to inhale her scent, hear her laughter. Her presence in Vietnam, even in hibernation, ignited his Chevalier's instincts like the most potent of aphrodisiacs.

_Brother Amshel said she was scheduled to awaken within this month._

_I suppose I can afford to be patient for just a little longer._

Straightening up, Solomon frowned. The lucid 'dream' he'd experienced during the trip seeped back into his consciousness. Its details so vivid on the tip of his tongue, yet ungraspable.

_What was the dream about… ?_

It wasn't the first time he'd sedated himself to endure the torpor of plane journeys. It kept his impatience tamped, helped stave off unnecessary thought. And each time, he'd had this strange… hallucination quite frequently.

Of marrying to someone who wore Diva's face. Of standing at the edge of death, crashing into blackness. Endless struggle, desire, despair and loss.

But when the sedative wore off, the dream always slid from his consciousness. Dates and details all garbling to white noise. He was left with only a peculiar breathless sensation—as if something vital was about to happen. No way to tell whether it was a calamity or a boon.

Only knew that whatever it was, it would change his life forever.

He had no idea what it meant. No idea who the Diva look-alike even _was_. He strongly suspected it was just Diva herself—a manifestation of his subconscious longing to see her.

He didn't think about it much. He had more important things to deal with.

Work kept you centered, after all. Contemplation did not.

Rising from his seat, he felt his muscles sigh with relief. He disliked sitting in airplanes, no matter how luxurious the seating or accommodating the staff. But he enjoyed the atmosphere of airports—he was susceptible even now to their transient aura. Large crowds always roused his appetite.

It was the same thing for Diva.

Smiling faintly, Solomon recalled the first time he'd taken Diva into the crowded New York subways. His Queen had squealed in glee as the downtown express had whooshed in. Smiled even wider when they'd slipped among the warm press of bodies within. They'd fed off at least three straphangers where they stood, and the oblivious crowd had held the poor fools up long after he and Diva made their exit somewhere near Brooklyn.

Later, at their five-star-hotel, Nathan had entertained them by reading the reports from the newspaper in funny high-pitched voices. Diva had clung to Solomon's arm and laughed like a hellcat.

 _Like mama, like son,_ Nathan had teased.

_Nathan…_

_Why do I feel as though I had a very important talk with him?_

_Why do I feel as though… I shouldn't be here at all?_

Scratch that. The latter sensation was a default mode. He'd felt it since before he even became a Chevalier.

But then... why this sudden queasy displacement? Like deja vu, yet not. Even now, in his mind's eye, amidst all other dim recollections, he had a vivid image of pink lace and warm little fingers. Of waltzing someone—Diva-and-yet-not-Diva—under bright chandeliers. Feeling, for the first time in decades, happy and _alive_.

But how could that be? He racked his brain, fighting to remember, but memory eluded him.

The ringing of his cellphone intruded.

Checking the number, Solomon answered calmly. "Hello?"

"Solomon—I hear you've landed in Vietnam?"

"Hello, Van. Yes, I am at the airport. I had some business that needed seeing-to."

"Concerning Delta67?"

"Well, in a way. Yes."

It wasn't the case. But he wouldn't tell Van so. It was cumbersome, being honest all the time. He let these humans keep that particular 'virtue'.

"Will you be overseeing the results of our experiments? I've been trying to contact you in hope of bringing you to the research building. We have been making considerable headway."

Solomon smiled. _Ah, this again._

Van was his public barometer for the Delta67 project—capable and enterprising. But he could really be such a pest. Nitpicking each detail. Solomon's treatment of him was a mildness that verged on indifference. Delta67's trivialities were of no real interest to him. He was far more attracted to its long-term results.

_A world overrun completely with Chiropterans. Entire civilizations toppled by our kind._

_A world that functions on the pulse of Diva's song._

It sounded delicious. Invigorating. But he couldn't let himself be as absorbed in it as Amshel was. Couldn't bring himself to be absorbed in _anything_ , really. Indifference clouded his every hour and thought. Time felt meaningless, as did much else in this life.

He never thought about it much. It seemed so humdrum, so clichéd, to feel that way. Like Death brandishing a frying pan.

He had everything that an ambitious man would want, after all. He had superiority—for the last few years, his company was the undisputed leader of the industry. He had fame—his publicity agents had ten thick albums of articles and clippings about his financial exploits. He had money—enough to indemnify luxury for the rest of his life.

_Any minute now, I'll smile and feel happy for myself._

He didn't. He felt nothing.

On the phone, Van was fussing about the superfluous Lycee gala. Solomon listened with one ear. His mind had shifted beyond that—to Karl, and to his strange behavior of late.

His brother had always been the dark horse of their family; more experiment than kindred. Amshel considered him of little business use because Karl was too impulsive. James was leery of him, and his joyless demeanor bored Nathan. To Diva, Karl was nothing more than another vein to sink her teeth into.

Solomon had watched the combined alienation take its toll on Karl. Then after Vietnam, when Karl had lost his arm to Saya, the woman Solomon had never met, yet heard so much about, the incident had scarred him forever. He'd retreated as if into an encasing of silence.

Nonetheless, Solomon was determined to draw Karl from his shell. Amshel often said an unfocused ally risked losing the entire mission—and Solomon agreed. Since their earliest years, he'd taken the role of something like a backer for Karl—or was restraining-bolt the better word? He took Karl's failings personally, almost like a real brother than a surrogate. Tendered excuses for him, guided him toward better paths.

 _A terminal Savior complex,_ Amshel often sneered.

Whatever the case, Solomon refused to lose hope in Karl. Time and patience would make him better, ease his isolation. He was certain of it.

_Is it Karl whose isolation you wish to ease? Or simply your own?_

He brushed the idea off.

Honestly, Karl had been acting very strange these days. Even more withholding than usual. Solomon was sure he was hiding something.

But what?

His thoughts drifted over possibilities, settling on the container Karl held within the school. And what that container held.

_Diva._

_Why would Karl want to move her so urgently to the research farm?_

He intended to find out.

"I'll provide you directions to reach the school building, so you don't get caught in traffic," Van was saying on the phone.

Solomon half-smiled. "There is no need. I'm familiar with the routes here, Van. I'm certain I can reach the Lycee unscathed."

"There's been a recent spell of rainfall. Extremely inconvenient. It's blocked off so many roadways. If only the government here would get their infrastructure in order, they could—"

Solomon barely listened. Van had a habit of trying to teach him the names of streets and avenues wherever their new business was being conducted, as if Solomon were a tourist.

Idiot.

Solomon could scan any city from a height no man could achieve without wings. He knew his goddamned way around.

The Lycee ball was an annual event—but as with all else, a party was never just a party for a good businessman. It was a place to see and be seen, make contacts, make deals, or break them.

When Solomon arrived at the ballroom, it was brilliantly-lit, filled to its capacity with human flesh. The hall was a mass of flowers and starched linen tables, the band playing to entertain the chattering guests. Adults decked out to the nines, boys and girls with colorful dresses and dark suits, clashing perfumes and colognes.

Trust fund babies. Financial aid cases. Daughters or sons of close colleagues.

One inhalation told him which one was the offspring of whom, which one had eaten what before arriving here, which one was on the rag, which one had been crying, vomiting, smoking, drinking—and when and how much.

Again, Solomon felt a strange deja vu invade. As if he were stepping into a door to the past. Or the future.

It was Rosh Hashanah tonight. His mother always told him, as a child, that on this day his fate was being jotted down, his life and destiny decided. Solomon had never paid much attention to the concept. Nonetheless, a part of him still sometimes hoped, in a somber way, that something good was going to happen to him.

That he might, perhaps, wake up.

He made his way calmly through the crowded banquet hall, nodding at several better-known acquaintances, stopping to speak to a select few others. He felt the tug of the rest of the room, wanting him near them.

As always, he had to flick on an internal switch when he was at these parties—one that made him a magnet to the eyes. People gravitated instantly to his company. Indeed, as he passed, the calls trumpeted _, "Solomon—I had no idea you were going to be here! Solomon—we haven't seen you in so long! Solomon, where were you hiding these months? Solomon…"_

Often, he felt as if he were on a stage, fulfilling a particular role. Sometimes the aloof adult, sometimes the playful child. He nodded, introduced, heard introductions, corresponded, tallied details, shook hands with a firm grip and spoke in clear, crisp, businesslike tones. Or with others he chuckled, smiled, sweet-talked, made light remarks, squeezed fingers and met gazes as he lowered his voice, a sort of theatrical closeness.

Stepping near the dancefloor, he glanced at the wide French windows. The night air rushed in, moist and sweet, and he shut his eyes, longing to drown in its cusp.

_That dream…?_

_What was it about that dream that I can't seem to shake off?_

It wasn't just the flutter of wind on his skin that felt familiar. It was something about this room, this particular evening, that made him feel as if he'd been here before.

Was _meant_ to be here.

Then again, parties like these were _sine qua non_ to his lifestyle. Why shouldn't any gala feel blasé to him?

A sudden squeal pierced his ears.

"Look! A blue rose!"

_What?_

Solomon suddenly found himself the main attraction to a throng of giggling teenage girls. Their gazes pinging on him, bright as fireflies.

_Dear God. Not this again._

He was conscious of his good looks. He took for granted the way people's eyes drank him in, appraising and welcoming. But in a crowd, it was very different. Didn't matter if the staring was done with practiced discretion, like in the boardroom, or with open interest, like in the nightclubs.

Ogling was ogling. And it made him feel like an insect in a belljar.

"Then is he the Phantom?'" a teenage girl whispered.

"He must be—because he's just so incredibly _gorgeous_!"

Solomon glanced their way. _Honestly_. Did they not realize he was within earshot?

" _Aaah_! He looked at me!"

"No! He looked at _me_!"

"Liar—it was _me_!"

His fingers twitched. He lifted them automatically to comb the hair from his face. He was beginning to wish he had something to hold in his hands. A drink, a cellphone, the arm of a female escort. _Anything_.

Letting his expression betray none of his discomfort, he studied the room for an exit. A blue-gowned blonde with a minx-face caught his eyes. He considered asking her to dance, just to keep his attention centered

But then a scent reached him. A piercing aroma over the plethora of excess perfume and human blood. Something vaguely familiar, yet like nothing he'd ever smelled before.

Solomon went perfectly still. His eyes shifted beyond the blonde, to the girl standing a few paces behind her. Short dark hair. A bouffant pink dress that exposed her shoulders and neck. No make-up except a lick of lipstick. She was facing away from Solomon, but her profile was strangely familiar.

An uncanny deja vu descended.

Solomon froze.

She was the only girl in the room conspicuously not-staring. And her expression, strained and ill at-ease, stated that she dearly wished to be someplace else.

Which was exactly how _he_ felt.

Unbidden, the 'dream' he'd experienced aboard the plane crept in. He saw again, crystal-clear, the bright chandeliers and brown eyes, little finger wrapped around his. Waltzing, whirling; everything sweeping round and round.

Solomon felt unaccountably breathless, as if poised at a sudden height.

_Why do I feel so strange, looking at her?_

_Why does she seem so familiar?_

Certainly, from this angle, there was a definite resemblance to Diva, though she did not seem confident, or graceful, like his Diva was.

Still, he found himself drinking her in with his every sense. His feet shifted on instinct, moving for her. Each step was so smooth, it was nearly like floating. An unseen cord attached to his sternum, drawing him relentlessly along.

_Who...?_

_Who is she?_

Then suddenly he was right before her. Amazingly, she was even prettier up close. Her hair shone like rich thick silk, the skin of her shoulders impossibly smooth. Solomon stared, dizziness descending like a hood over his head. One hand already extending, in a practiced invitation that seemed, in retrospect, to seal the rest of his fate.

And the words slid like liquid off his lips, as if he'd been rehearsing to say them to her, all his life and longer.

_"Pardon me, but may I kindly have this dance?"_


End file.
